A few citations to get you started: * Chicago Tribune * Reason Magazine * Boston Globe Many of these also refer to a study by UC Davis which showed that drug dogs will alert without any drugs in the area if the handler believes there are drugs in the area.
When I come across a project like that, I ask myself the question "Why did this project not make it to critical mass?" Chances are very good it's one of the following: 1. It really wasn't that useful, just a fairly good idea that turned out to be not worth the effort. 2. It's handled better or at least well enough by a larger more established project. 3. It's targeting a problem that's only a problem to a tiny number of people.
I'm not saying there isn't some project infancy mortality due to failure to publicize, but if it's really that good, either the original developer will want to keep working on it (because it's useful to him), or that developer will be enamored of it enough to show to his / her friend, who finds it useful enough to keep working on it.
And GP is right that if your problem is that there's only a tiny number of people who need the project, and you are a part of that minority, the right thing to do is either take it on yourself or pay somebody to help you out.
We should really be more careful when we choose judges.
In California's system, the governor appoints judges who then have to make it through an election. All evidence suggests the governors are being careful, just careful to pick judges that a reliably pro-police.
That doesn't always help - they may search it illegally, or (as Shaun Martin argues) invent a completely fake excuse to allow them to search it. In this case, it was a completely fake "drug tip". Also quite common is to call in the police dog, order the dog to false-alert when walking near the vehicle, and search based on that.
Now, you should still not give permission to search, that's absolutely true. But especially if you're not a straight clean-cut educated white guy, don't be all that surprised if they trample on your rights.
Or what Dan Quayle once said: "Bobby Knight told me this: 'There is nothing that a good defense cannot beat a better offense.' In other words a good offense wins."
Territories are still part of the US. The US military is supposed to defend Puerto Rico just like it would defend Cape Cod (which, as a sibling post points out, was also under actual military attack in WWII).
At least, that's how I'd like to react to an organization whom I'm paying (indirectly via my taxes) failing in their legal requirements to keep this data absolutely secret. And in a way that is obviously stupid: They had no business storing things unencrypted on a backup tape, and no business having their offsite backup solution be "stick it in the back of somebody's car". I'll put it this way - my organization deals with information far less important than that, and we treat our backups with a lot more care than that.
Re:Another functional programming fan
on
OCaml For the Masses
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
My favorite code to read is OOP stuff written by coders who understand and make use of functional programming concepts. They know how to write things that are stateless when that makes sense, and use state in an appropriate manner when that makes sense.
And yes, by all means use it when appropriate. But don't think that Lisp is always the right language for scripting your text editor (dodges blow from Emacs partisan).
I will also say with utter confidence that your party line (of which there are only two) will not determine how factual you are.
There are more than 2 party lines in the US. The other ones are frequently ignored, but there are party lines for socialists, fascists, libertarians, etc. And you're right that they all have their various myths that form the core of their philosophies:
Socialists: Ordinary people can always manage things for their own benefit. Fascists: There are Evil People who are the source of all your problems and should be eliminated without remorse. Libertarians: The unfettered free market always sets a fair and accurate price. Authoritarians: The government always has the best interests of the country in mind. Democrats: It is possible to make life perfectly fair. Republicans: Privately owned businesses are the best way to organize people.
Unless I'm misreading GP, the kinds of citizens we're talking about here are either disabled or elderly. While it is possible for a 75-year-old in wheelchair to attempt a robbery, it's not very likely to be successful.
What GP is saying, which is absolutely correct, is that if our societal goal was maximizing productivity, we'd immediately kill off or at least stop supporting economically anybody who was too old or disabled to work. After all, they produce nothing, will never produce anything (unlike babies), and will use up a great deal. In that kind of society, retirement is a luxury for the very wealthy only - if you couldn't afford retirement, too bad, we'll notify your next of kin.
But we've collectively decided that our goal isn't simply to maximize productivity, so instead of killing these folks we support them with Social Security.
US negotiator to foreign counterpart: "We need to reduce global CO2 emissions. We'd like you work with us to create a global cap-and-trade system so that everyone is in the same boat. If you prefer not to be involved with such a system, we will be imposing a tariff of $X to compensate for how much extra CO2 cleanup we need to do because you're not helping us out."
This sort of thing could be done, if we had the political will to do it. We don't, so it's not going to happen, but it could be if we really wanted to.
That's why I pointed out that the first method was in fact done in a similar context, and had the desired effect. As with any theory, the ultimate test is whether it made a successful prediction about reality, and in this case it did.
The two solutions that are in line with both past experience and economic theory are: (A) cap-and-trade, where the government sells a limited number of pollution permits, allows the buyers of those permits to trade them, and then sends inspectors (funded by the proceeds of the original sale) to ensure that nobody goes over the number of permits they have. This was successfully used to reduce SO2 emissions back in the 1980's and 1990's.
(B) A CO2 tax, where the more you pollute the more you're taxed. This gives companies a financial incentive to reduce their emissions, and means that those that do reduce their CO2 emissions aren't at a competitive disadvantage from those that don't. Again, inspectors are needed (funded by the tax) to ensure that nobody cheats.
Both of these basically rely on putting a price on pollution, and then making sure nobody cheats on paying that price. It's enforced by the government because nobody else can - nobody owns the country's air, and nobody reasonably could.
David X Cohen has made it very clear that Zapp Brannigan was based on a combination of Kirk's apparent disregard of danger and a popular impression of you being a jerk. Do you think of him as effective parody, a completely different character, or just silly?
(Especially since you ended up putting in some voice-over time on Futurama)
You are allowed to protest pretty much anywhere if you do so peacefully.
Tell that to the protesters who were barred from going near Wall St about 2 weeks ago (and then in some cases penned in by police barricades and shot with pepper spray).
At certain big events where there is expected to be disruption and not peaceful protest (like the anti-WTO protests) there are designated free speech zones.
No, it's not limited to big events where there is expected to be a disruption. For instance, in 2004, I was outside the Vice-Presidential Debate between John Edwards and Dick Cheney. There were no plans by anybody to commit acts of violence, vandalism, or even blocking traffic, just people who wanted to use a political event to engage in political speech (crazy concept). They set up a Free Speech Zone about half a mile away from the actual event and only some of the many people engaged in political speech ended up being sent there (signs with "Kerry/Edwards", "Bush/Cheney", "Michael Badnarik", or "David Cobb" were fine, while "Leave Iraq Now" were not). And I should point out that not 1 TV camera or reporter went anywhere near the FSZ.
For what it's worth, my experience as an occasional political protester is that police don't go after protesters unless they think that those protests are going to be both heavily anti-corporate and large enough to be noticed.
There's an important difference between Democrats / Republicans and Firebirds / Camaros though: The cars might actually take you someplace you want to go.
The usual song-and-dance from these folks is that the market will regulate it, because those customers who are unhappy with non-neutral service will go to another vendor. There are two major problems with this argument: 1. If there are only a few vendors, and new vendors can't get into the market (which they basically can't due to network effects, economies of scale, relationships with phone manufacturers, etc), then the various vendors can all provide non-neutral service and the customers have nowhere to go for neutral service. They don't have to engage in any kind of illegal communication about it, either: They can just do it, let the other guys discover they're doing it, and wait for them to follow suit. It's the same process that caused all the different US airlines to start charging for luggage within very short order, even though customers hate it.
2. Customers typically don't know that their connections are being throttled. It's sort of like how lemons get sold off to people who don't know what they're buying (technical term here is information asymmetry). If they don't know about it, they can't make buying decisions based on it.
Slashdot Mirror
A few citations to get you started:
* Chicago Tribune
* Reason Magazine
* Boston Globe
Many of these also refer to a study by UC Davis which showed that drug dogs will alert without any drugs in the area if the handler believes there are drugs in the area.
When I come across a project like that, I ask myself the question "Why did this project not make it to critical mass?" Chances are very good it's one of the following:
1. It really wasn't that useful, just a fairly good idea that turned out to be not worth the effort.
2. It's handled better or at least well enough by a larger more established project.
3. It's targeting a problem that's only a problem to a tiny number of people.
I'm not saying there isn't some project infancy mortality due to failure to publicize, but if it's really that good, either the original developer will want to keep working on it (because it's useful to him), or that developer will be enamored of it enough to show to his / her friend, who finds it useful enough to keep working on it.
And GP is right that if your problem is that there's only a tiny number of people who need the project, and you are a part of that minority, the right thing to do is either take it on yourself or pay somebody to help you out.
We should really be more careful when we choose judges.
In California's system, the governor appoints judges who then have to make it through an election. All evidence suggests the governors are being careful, just careful to pick judges that a reliably pro-police.
That doesn't always help - they may search it illegally, or (as Shaun Martin argues) invent a completely fake excuse to allow them to search it. In this case, it was a completely fake "drug tip". Also quite common is to call in the police dog, order the dog to false-alert when walking near the vehicle, and search based on that.
Now, you should still not give permission to search, that's absolutely true. But especially if you're not a straight clean-cut educated white guy, don't be all that surprised if they trample on your rights.
Autism is irreverent.
Man, I don't go in for formality either, but I don't think autism is any more irreverent than any other disease. ~
That depends - what's the CEO of Pepsi up to?
Or what Dan Quayle once said: "Bobby Knight told me this: 'There is nothing that a good defense cannot beat a better offense.' In other words a good offense wins."
Territories are still part of the US. The US military is supposed to defend Puerto Rico just like it would defend Cape Cod (which, as a sibling post points out, was also under actual military attack in WWII).
So does Alaska.
Nah, this is Illinois, better use a picture of Rod Blagojevich.
Sledgehammer. Head. Hit.
At least, that's how I'd like to react to an organization whom I'm paying (indirectly via my taxes) failing in their legal requirements to keep this data absolutely secret. And in a way that is obviously stupid: They had no business storing things unencrypted on a backup tape, and no business having their offsite backup solution be "stick it in the back of somebody's car". I'll put it this way - my organization deals with information far less important than that, and we treat our backups with a lot more care than that.
My favorite code to read is OOP stuff written by coders who understand and make use of functional programming concepts. They know how to write things that are stateless when that makes sense, and use state in an appropriate manner when that makes sense.
And yes, by all means use it when appropriate. But don't think that Lisp is always the right language for scripting your text editor (dodges blow from Emacs partisan).
I will also say with utter confidence that your party line (of which there are only two) will not determine how factual you are.
There are more than 2 party lines in the US. The other ones are frequently ignored, but there are party lines for socialists, fascists, libertarians, etc. And you're right that they all have their various myths that form the core of their philosophies:
Socialists: Ordinary people can always manage things for their own benefit.
Fascists: There are Evil People who are the source of all your problems and should be eliminated without remorse.
Libertarians: The unfettered free market always sets a fair and accurate price.
Authoritarians: The government always has the best interests of the country in mind.
Democrats: It is possible to make life perfectly fair.
Republicans: Privately owned businesses are the best way to organize people.
Unless I'm misreading GP, the kinds of citizens we're talking about here are either disabled or elderly. While it is possible for a 75-year-old in wheelchair to attempt a robbery, it's not very likely to be successful.
What GP is saying, which is absolutely correct, is that if our societal goal was maximizing productivity, we'd immediately kill off or at least stop supporting economically anybody who was too old or disabled to work. After all, they produce nothing, will never produce anything (unlike babies), and will use up a great deal. In that kind of society, retirement is a luxury for the very wealthy only - if you couldn't afford retirement, too bad, we'll notify your next of kin.
But we've collectively decided that our goal isn't simply to maximize productivity, so instead of killing these folks we support them with Social Security.
US negotiator to foreign counterpart: "We need to reduce global CO2 emissions. We'd like you work with us to create a global cap-and-trade system so that everyone is in the same boat. If you prefer not to be involved with such a system, we will be imposing a tariff of $X to compensate for how much extra CO2 cleanup we need to do because you're not helping us out."
This sort of thing could be done, if we had the political will to do it. We don't, so it's not going to happen, but it could be if we really wanted to.
That's why I pointed out that the first method was in fact done in a similar context, and had the desired effect. As with any theory, the ultimate test is whether it made a successful prediction about reality, and in this case it did.
The two solutions that are in line with both past experience and economic theory are:
(A) cap-and-trade, where the government sells a limited number of pollution permits, allows the buyers of those permits to trade them, and then sends inspectors (funded by the proceeds of the original sale) to ensure that nobody goes over the number of permits they have. This was successfully used to reduce SO2 emissions back in the 1980's and 1990's.
(B) A CO2 tax, where the more you pollute the more you're taxed. This gives companies a financial incentive to reduce their emissions, and means that those that do reduce their CO2 emissions aren't at a competitive disadvantage from those that don't. Again, inspectors are needed (funded by the tax) to ensure that nobody cheats.
Both of these basically rely on putting a price on pollution, and then making sure nobody cheats on paying that price. It's enforced by the government because nobody else can - nobody owns the country's air, and nobody reasonably could.
What changed their mind was Buzz Aldrin.
David X Cohen has made it very clear that Zapp Brannigan was based on a combination of Kirk's apparent disregard of danger and a popular impression of you being a jerk. Do you think of him as effective parody, a completely different character, or just silly?
(Especially since you ended up putting in some voice-over time on Futurama)
You are allowed to protest pretty much anywhere if you do so peacefully.
Tell that to the protesters who were barred from going near Wall St about 2 weeks ago (and then in some cases penned in by police barricades and shot with pepper spray).
At certain big events where there is expected to be disruption and not peaceful protest (like the anti-WTO protests) there are designated free speech zones.
No, it's not limited to big events where there is expected to be a disruption. For instance, in 2004, I was outside the Vice-Presidential Debate between John Edwards and Dick Cheney. There were no plans by anybody to commit acts of violence, vandalism, or even blocking traffic, just people who wanted to use a political event to engage in political speech (crazy concept). They set up a Free Speech Zone about half a mile away from the actual event and only some of the many people engaged in political speech ended up being sent there (signs with "Kerry/Edwards", "Bush/Cheney", "Michael Badnarik", or "David Cobb" were fine, while "Leave Iraq Now" were not). And I should point out that not 1 TV camera or reporter went anywhere near the FSZ.
For what it's worth, my experience as an occasional political protester is that police don't go after protesters unless they think that those protests are going to be both heavily anti-corporate and large enough to be noticed.
There's an important difference between Democrats / Republicans and Firebirds / Camaros though: The cars might actually take you someplace you want to go.
Who can?
The usual song-and-dance from these folks is that the market will regulate it, because those customers who are unhappy with non-neutral service will go to another vendor. There are two major problems with this argument:
1. If there are only a few vendors, and new vendors can't get into the market (which they basically can't due to network effects, economies of scale, relationships with phone manufacturers, etc), then the various vendors can all provide non-neutral service and the customers have nowhere to go for neutral service. They don't have to engage in any kind of illegal communication about it, either: They can just do it, let the other guys discover they're doing it, and wait for them to follow suit. It's the same process that caused all the different US airlines to start charging for luggage within very short order, even though customers hate it.
2. Customers typically don't know that their connections are being throttled. It's sort of like how lemons get sold off to people who don't know what they're buying (technical term here is information asymmetry). If they don't know about it, they can't make buying decisions based on it.
It's been a fantastic symphony, but sure seems like whoever screwed up should be marched to the scaffold right now.
Look, if he were dying, he wouldn't bother to paint 'Aaagh', he'd just say it.
Or, the caveman was a paedophile serial killer with a side interest in modern representational art...
Oh, so you mean just like a modern-day avant-garde artist?