The Turing Test is a proposed metric for telling whether a machine is emulating human behavior enough to be considered intelligent. It requires an interrogator to question two entities, one of which is human, the other a machine (typically via text to remove speech synthesis cues). If they cannot reliably determine which is which, the machine is said to pass.
A Universal Turing Machine is a theoretical computing device that implements a set of operations necessary for general purpose computing. There are infinite implementations (including the CPU in your box) but all UTMs are theoretically equivalent in terms of the tasks they can perform, although the complexity of any particular task is dependent on the definition of the particular UTM in question. Its behavior provides insight into the theoretical limits of what's possible with a sequential digital computer (ex - using a TM as an abstraction, it can be shown that for an arbitrary program it's impossible to determine algorithmically whether that program will halt).
I appreciate that your post is honest, but is it possible to separate your biases for an objective analysis even for a second?
If the businessman is providing a service different than the church, why is it automatically "a bad thing" and "the worst kind of evil" if he happens to *try* to turn a profit?
I'm tired of profit being disparaged as a motivator or an factor determining how to invest capital. It's the only reliable one that consistently provides a higher standard of living for BOTH consumers and producers, when allowed to actually work - especially for small businesses with reasonably low barriers to entry. If you can't make a product that your audience wants, you lose. Uh, you do know businesses can fail, don't you? Sounds exactly like your example. Why would someone use the fee-for-service alternative rather than the church? Better food, accomodations, incremental, maybe but the point is that it holds value for that audience.
By the way, who do you think provides the money for charities? People and companies (some large, but many, many small donations, especially for something like a church), who have PROFITED from their labor, allowing them discretion in how they invest what's left over after covering their own expenses. Remember, not all value is financial, so it's perfectly rational, economically, to take money and invest it in a charity with no expectation of a profit to you, if you get other personal benefits from it.
So, your biases put you in a tough spot. How can someone be "evil" when trying to earn a profit if their natural inclination may well be be to do a "good thing" with any available extra resources.
Your example is flawed, though, because that target audience likely wouldn't see additional value, so there's no profit opportunity to open that business. A better vulture is the "payday loan" or "car title loan" services that preys on folks least likely to be able to make an informed decision. Even there, the exorbitant rates they charge reflect not gouging (or someone would certainly reduce them and serve this market for a slightly smaller profit still above the risk-free rate - market forces at work), but a high default rate on even these small loans. Banking is so heavily regulated, though, that I wouldn't be surprised if these fees were set by your government (ironically, probably stated as "acting on behalf of the little guy" and "to prevent gouging"), leaving no opportunity for the market to work, and only a lucrative oligopoly in it's place, exploiting folks in ways only a centrally controlled economy can.
Curious why this parent is modded troll, when the CIA post at the top is modded insightful.
Both cover similar cases alleging obstruction. Oh wait, the CIA admitted what they did, and presented an analysis of why, in the context of the investigations that were (and were not) actually underway at the time. Still waiting for an explanation of where the billing records under subpoena were, and why they were missing for years.
Mod both as offtopic, maybe, or maybe troll for that reason, but insightful? Shows how youth often conflates with ignorance to become a slashdot poster/moderator...
It could only be speculation from the buyer's perspective. Since there's still an open market, from their view it's EXACTLY identical to being paid in cash and deciding to invest the cash in Google stock.
From Google's perspective, there's no speculation. Their balance sheet is EXACTLY as if they sold held stock for cash for the transaction, and paid for the transaction with cash.
Volitility doesn't come into play for Google - they paid an expense with a fungible commodity. Once ownership's transferred, for Google, it's identical to the same transaction carried out with cash.
For the new stock owners, if they want to keep the stock, fine, but it isn't like Google didn't PAY $1 for $1 stated worth of transaction, that just isn't supportable, and that's what this conversation started with.
If a company issues stock for a purchase, it dilutes the existing stock base, so it isn't like they're creating value out of thin air. if 100 shares exist, and the company's worth $100K, the shares are worth 1K each. If they print another 100 shares, all 200 are worth $500 each. Usually, stock used for purchase is already "printed" but part of the reserves of the company, so it doesn't devalue the shares, but that actual value of ownership (just as if it had been bought at market with cash) transfers to the designee.
it's EXACTLY like they paid cash, and then they took the cash and bought stock at market with it. It certainly isn't "printing money" like you implied. If you think the company will go up, it's better than cash. Since the market's open to sell the stock, they can dump it for cash and get full value for it.
Simple econ. Stop trying to make a normal business transaction sound like something nefarious...
Waited to buy a 5G iPod once it had enough space for ALL of my music.
Will wait until an iPhone has 3G and GPS...but I'll pick one up that day!
I bought an iPaq 6315 on its launch day in 2004 (!) with a 3.5 inch screen, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GSM, and put a 2GB SD card in it. Until the iPhone gets 3G and GPS, it doesn't do anything the 6315 won't do (except the visual voice mail thingie, but that's candy, not a deal breaker).
if you include _all financial instruments_ and trading partner countries, your trading deficit will be exactly ZERO. the trade is offset exactly by the financial instruments. by definition.
for the three cases you cite weakening the economy:
the "things" you have bought - in any case, whether you buy them to add value or if it depreciates, it doesn't necessarily lower your net worth, and the result would be the same regardless of who you bought from.
your ability to buy decreasing - this makes no sense. who you buy from makes no direct difference on your "ability to buy" - if you mean net worth, covered above, if you mean cash flow, then it doesn't matter TO YOU who you bought a particular product from (except for price)
foreign ownership increases - how? by them reinvesting in US companies like any other stockholder. you can't complain on both sides of the transaction -> USD leaving country = bad, USD entering country = good. If the company doesn't do PROFITABLE things with the equity money they've been given, it's their fault. If they buy other raw materials, etc in the US, that's the point I was trying to make - USD eventually get invested in our markets, so a trade deficit has NO impact from that perspective overall. It comes down to getting out of industries where we have no competitive advantage, and maximizing those where we do.
Actually, we don't "owe" them anything on the trade deficit, any more than you owe your supermarket something because you have a trade deficit with them.
Trade partner A pays an agreed cash amount $x for goods and services to trade partner B. If we just stop here, there's a trade deficit because there's a cash flow in one direction. It's still not an issue in itself because goods and services of an equal value flow in the other direction. There isn't any additional expense "owed" because of it.
Goods are manufactured where they can be most efficiently, and, for those products, there should be a net cash inflow to producer countries. For cheap manufactured goods, it's a GOOD THING(tm) that the US has a net cash outflow. There are other goods/services where there are net cash inflows. It isn't even necessarily a good thing to have a trade balance or surplus, either. For a trading partner with extra USD, all of that foreign currency has to (eventually) be traded or invested back in the US, which is exactly what would happen if these products were sold internally.
Now, the budget deficit - that's a real deficit, and a real problem, but the trade "deficit" is simply little more than a scare idea. It still potentially applies to strategic/national security type availability reasons, NOT purely economic ones, but that's never the context it's raised in.
First, your use of the word "right" implies a claim on others. In all cases other than the one you state, where someone cannot work for their own food, there is no valid claim on the work of another person.
Second, having the choice to do nothing is not the obligation to do nothing.
There are benefits beyond monetary when helping others. Give 100 people the opportunity (but not the obligation) to help the truly needy, and many will. In fact, many already do through charity. You need more faith in your fellow man. Obligate 100 people to give money to the government, and you guarantee those assets will be inefficiently allocated.
(I'm not claiming there's no need for a government, and that it shouldn't be funded by _all of_ its citizens, but I do advocate an extraordinaly small scope for such a structure... ironically, the structure actually provided for by the US Constitution would do nicely...)
You actually like the ideas of libertarianism, not anarchy. You've almost got it - it's about keeping the ruling class (of all parties) secure, and the only way to do that is to make people dependent on them. The only way to do that is to give them something they should already provide for themselves, and the only way to do that is to tax the living daylights out of everything of value... If people were allowed to be responsible for themselves, instead of complaining about how much some other guy is making or demanding some new "right/benefit" from the politicians - who are only too happy to provide it, the rest of it would be as seen as obviously as ridiculous (and, ultimately, unsustainable) as it actually is.
actually, I'm pretty happy with my iPaq 6315 - BT, WiFi, GSM/GPRS, and a big color screen. With a 1GB card, it's my MP3 player, too. If it had GPS, like most newer devices, it'd be pretty near perfect.
My wife gave me a 60GB iPod, beautiful piece of engineering, but it's finding most use in the car - for most uses having 1 device to carry around is so much more convenient, especially with a BT headset.
Obviously, YMMV, but, if you can decide on exactly the features you want, there's most likely a decently converged device available that has that set of features...
The point is that metadata is useful, or even mandatory, for allowing certain internal workflow or functionality, but sensitive enough that you'd never want that metadata to go out with the published version of the document.
I've been on both sides of this problem with current Windows/Office implementations - receiving sales or RFP information that included "hidden" revision or comment information intended for another client, or catching similar information in documents heading out the door.
Within Office, there's a Remove Hidden Data add-in that allows you to clean up documents before publishing. Having this functionality enforced somehow once you leave a specified environment would be extremely helpful, while allowing you to leverage the advantages of tagging your file (i.e. if I do anything that looks like publishing, strip off all the metadata in the process)
You have a much better chance of winning the lottery than being killed by terrorism.
hmmm, let's see, most big payout lottery odds are in the several millions : one range...
Considering the WTC disaster alone, then of 240,000,000 US citizens, 3000 dead means about 80,000 : 1 - even considering the entire world's population ~6B, it's only 2M : 1 for that act alone - still far less than most lotteries.
nope, not a better chance at all. Your gratuitous comment lets people forget that terrorism IS a threat we have to take seriously. We need to realize that there _is_ a present danger to us from it, and that we must actively work to protect our societies. We may not like to face that fact, but that doesn't make it go away.
I'm feeling rather dense this morning, so could you please explain.
That's a typicel AC feeling, just don't pay attention to what you don't understand and resume your life.
actually, he was doing the OPPOSITE of not paying attention to what he didn't understand - he was ASKING FOR HELP TO UNDERSTAND WHAT HE DIDN'T UNDERSTAND.
nice reply. it's clear the only difference between you and him is that he KNOWS what he has to learn (and all the attendant consequences).
Your wife plays games, and you're complaining about anything??!?:) I thought I had it good (and I do) when my wife wanted a DirecTivo so we could record Green Bay Packer games out-of-market, but I can't get her near a game, PC or console... Consider yourself lucky!
nice post - it cracks me up that this long after your post, noone's commented on the funniest part of your post - the offhand reference to dihydrogen monoxide poisoning. Well - it cracked me up:)
FYI - He's publicly apologized for this incident, and has stated that recorders should have been allowed, and will be in the future at his speeches. So give him that much credit, at least.
Depending on the audience, and his capacity in speaking to them, I can see any number of reasons why he'd be within his rights to request no recorders. Whether it's politically a wise idea, even if within his rights, is another question...
Speaking as a private citizen at a private event, the organizers of the event certainly have the right to limit recording devices, and could defer to his wishes in setting that policy. If speaking as a representative of government, though, his remarks belong on the record.
All this talk about Ashcroft is amusing, too...most references are a little short on actual facts and long on hyperbole - usually misstating the reach and effect of Patriot. There really aren't many changes to long existing policy, with the exception that agencies can actually share information. Please don't reply disputing this unless you can quote an actual example of someone's speech being muzzled (or even "chilled") as a direct result of it.
The fact that we're discussing the merits of Patriot is almost, on its face, proof enough that the system is working. Everyone is, correctly, concerned about preserving our rights. Very few actually understand what that means... In this case it means specifying as an act of the legislature exactly how law enforcement and intelligence can legally act. Truly worrying, from a rights perspective, would be no such public discussion, and having these agencies privately and secretly deciding what policy should be, without fear of public reprisal.
Strictly, yes, it is ok to detain enemy combatants but not american citizens. You are right - semantics are crucially important here. If they're not American citizens, or if they are citizens effectively renouncing their citizenship by abetting the enemy, then rules of war and not rules of law should apply.
You seem to think that there's some overarching right to freedom beyond what the armed forces and other means of force carve out for you.
In theory, we all agree that there should be absolute rights without armed backup. In practice, only those honest with themselves realize how ridiculous that statement is.
If there's only one thing any political side should be able to agree on, it's that the point of government is first and foremost to protect the rights of its citizens from being forcibly abrogated by foreign combatants. By definition, they do not acknowledge the government's authority over them, so they are not subject to the laws of the country.
Really, it's not hard. If we decide to allow what you claim is liberty to non-citizens in this regard, we do it at cost to the liberty (and lives) of citizens. From a government's perspective, that would be an immoral position to take.
Spending money to get a political message out is political speech. It has impact far greater than any of the other methods you mentioned, and, indeed, is the primary way political communication happens in this country. Sure, an NYT letter (or even an OpEd) may be more articluate, and well conceived, than a 30 second TV ad, but far less than 1% of the target audience will ever see it, and, frankly, less than 1% of even those people will actually read it critically. Once we agree on this point, much of the disagreement between our positions goes quietly away.
There are many thing I disagree with in both the RNC and DNC (as I'd gather is true for you as well). The other groups you cite are similar in that like minded people (individuals) have banded together to advance issues, collectively, that not everyone agrees with. The fact that they're not universally popular is the POINT behind why political speech must be protected. Once these groups are viewed as entities composed of individuals gathered (essentially) for the express purpose of maximizing their collective impact for their chosen cause, it's hard to see how you make the distinction between action permissible for individuals but not similarly permissible for groups.
I'm always critical of any measure to "protect" one of my rights by limiting it in any way. This, again, is a clear attempt to control who can say what, with clear advantage to the existing party mechanisms over any advocacy groups. Whether you consider these to be shells or not is immaterial - Congress has no right to muzzle me or any group I advocate. In fact, without that explicit bright red line, most of the other rights we hold can be picked off at their leisure - complaint will be reduced to blogs like Slashdot, which (to one significant figure) nobody reads...
Thanks for a thoughtful reply - you don't see many here. I hope I've forced you to at least review some principles here as much as I have had to.:)
The lawsuits to overturn McCain-Feingold are explicitly about preserving your rights to free political speech. The legal types that want to take it away because it's inconvenient to their status quo (and who you shoud really be mad at) were the reason it passed in Congress. It's interesting that the only bipartisan interest these lawmakers seem to have is maintaining their own incumbency... By the way - no reasonable debate has happened in Congress for decades, and a court challenge is the only honorable way left to try to preserve your right to have your opinions on political matters expressed.
Whether actual debate should happen in Congress is another discussion...it's one reasonable position to think that your rep should vote for the principles that he espoused when he was elected, i.e. the reasons the people elected him, rather than change his ideology from issue to issue. That discussion, however interesting, is beside your original point, except that if it's understood that partisan infighting rules once people are elected, it's even more important for individuals to be able to express themselves politlcally during the election process.
As to Luskin, he makes his public living Fisking the distortions that Krugman uses to make his living, and Krugman appears to have crossed over the line by accusing him of being a criminal. There was never the hope that these two partisans would debate practically with the hope of coming to a joint understanding, so your plaintive request seems to be misplaced from the outset. If someone called you a stalker, you're a better person than most if your first thought is to call him and work out your differences using best argument over the coffee table.
It's wrong to go into a music store and pilfer a CD as much as it is to download an MP3 version of a song. But, is that download occuring because someone wants to sample some music? Or is it just plain theft?
From a copyright perspective, it's an infraction. Period. Intent has no bearing. That's all they're claiming. Your sentence admits that. RIAA is completely in the right in defending their copyright. That's not where we should be discussing this. There is a gaping opportunity for someone to provide alternative distribution methods. The problem is that they own the copyrights to the things people want to hear. Until that changes (don't hold your breath), they have the right to dictate how their property is distributed and used.
Should they change to a better, more realistic distribution model? Absolutely.
Don't like their methods or the state of things right now? Tough...
Reread what you wrote, it doesn't really make independent sense or advance your argument.
Serious academics with ideas that can be successful in the marketplace start companies to leverage their ideas all the time to make a profit. They protect their investment of their own intellectual property through the use of patents and copyrights, where appropriate.
There's no reasonable way to argue that people who come up with ideas shouldn't be able to protect their IP or other unique work output value through patents and copyrights. Things would simply stagnate. I do agree that perpetual copyright renewal is a Bad Thing (tm), and that, eventually, all covered work should fall into public domain.
Seriously, though. You're angry because people own ideas for a length of time? Of course they do - it's the output of their labor! And you want to be taken seriously?
(real question - please answer) Are you against private property ownership, too? If not, where's the distinction made in your mind? Where is the incentive for the individual to create something and be denied any advantage his creation might provide?
Ayn Rand wasn't talking to the "academics" without the ability to understand working and benfiting from that effort individually. I know that there are many academics who view their work as completely compatible with her worldview.
Slashdot Mirror
The Turing Test is a proposed metric for telling whether a machine is emulating human behavior enough to be considered intelligent. It requires an interrogator to question two entities, one of which is human, the other a machine (typically via text to remove speech synthesis cues). If they cannot reliably determine which is which, the machine is said to pass.
A Universal Turing Machine is a theoretical computing device that implements a set of operations necessary for general purpose computing. There are infinite implementations (including the CPU in your box) but all UTMs are theoretically equivalent in terms of the tasks they can perform, although the complexity of any particular task is dependent on the definition of the particular UTM in question. Its behavior provides insight into the theoretical limits of what's possible with a sequential digital computer (ex - using a TM as an abstraction, it can be shown that for an arbitrary program it's impossible to determine algorithmically whether that program will halt).
I appreciate that your post is honest, but is it possible to separate your biases for an objective analysis even for a second?
If the businessman is providing a service different than the church, why is it automatically "a bad thing" and "the worst kind of evil" if he happens to *try* to turn a profit?
I'm tired of profit being disparaged as a motivator or an factor determining how to invest capital. It's the only reliable one that consistently provides a higher standard of living for BOTH consumers and producers, when allowed to actually work - especially for small businesses with reasonably low barriers to entry. If you can't make a product that your audience wants, you lose. Uh, you do know businesses can fail, don't you? Sounds exactly like your example. Why would someone use the fee-for-service alternative rather than the church? Better food, accomodations, incremental, maybe but the point is that it holds value for that audience.
By the way, who do you think provides the money for charities? People and companies (some large, but many, many small donations, especially for something like a church), who have PROFITED from their labor, allowing them discretion in how they invest what's left over after covering their own expenses. Remember, not all value is financial, so it's perfectly rational, economically, to take money and invest it in a charity with no expectation of a profit to you, if you get other personal benefits from it.
So, your biases put you in a tough spot. How can someone be "evil" when trying to earn a profit if their natural inclination may well be be to do a "good thing" with any available extra resources.
Your example is flawed, though, because that target audience likely wouldn't see additional value, so there's no profit opportunity to open that business. A better vulture is the "payday loan" or "car title loan" services that preys on folks least likely to be able to make an informed decision. Even there, the exorbitant rates they charge reflect not gouging (or someone would certainly reduce them and serve this market for a slightly smaller profit still above the risk-free rate - market forces at work), but a high default rate on even these small loans. Banking is so heavily regulated, though, that I wouldn't be surprised if these fees were set by your government (ironically, probably stated as "acting on behalf of the little guy" and "to prevent gouging"), leaving no opportunity for the market to work, and only a lucrative oligopoly in it's place, exploiting folks in ways only a centrally controlled economy can.
Curious why this parent is modded troll, when the CIA post at the top is modded insightful.
Both cover similar cases alleging obstruction. Oh wait, the CIA admitted what they did, and presented an analysis of why, in the context of the investigations that were (and were not) actually underway at the time. Still waiting for an explanation of where the billing records under subpoena were, and why they were missing for years.
Mod both as offtopic, maybe, or maybe troll for that reason, but insightful? Shows how youth often conflates with ignorance to become a slashdot poster/moderator...
Yeah, because you actually read the whole bible (or talmud / koran / star trek fanfic canon / other holy text for your current religion...)
:)
It could only be speculation from the buyer's perspective. Since there's still an open market, from their view it's EXACTLY identical to being paid in cash and deciding to invest the cash in Google stock.
From Google's perspective, there's no speculation. Their balance sheet is EXACTLY as if they sold held stock for cash for the transaction, and paid for the transaction with cash.
Volitility doesn't come into play for Google - they paid an expense with a fungible commodity. Once ownership's transferred, for Google, it's identical to the same transaction carried out with cash.
For the new stock owners, if they want to keep the stock, fine, but it isn't like Google didn't PAY $1 for $1 stated worth of transaction, that just isn't supportable, and that's what this conversation started with.
If a company issues stock for a purchase, it dilutes the existing stock base, so it isn't like they're creating value out of thin air. if 100 shares exist, and the company's worth $100K, the shares are worth 1K each. If they print another 100 shares, all 200 are worth $500 each. Usually, stock used for purchase is already "printed" but part of the reserves of the company, so it doesn't devalue the shares, but that actual value of ownership (just as if it had been bought at market with cash) transfers to the designee.
it's EXACTLY like they paid cash, and then they took the cash and bought stock at market with it. It certainly isn't "printing money" like you implied. If you think the company will go up, it's better than cash. Since the market's open to sell the stock, they can dump it for cash and get full value for it.
Simple econ. Stop trying to make a normal business transaction sound like something nefarious...
Waited to buy a 5G iPod once it had enough space for ALL of my music.
Will wait until an iPhone has 3G and GPS...but I'll pick one up that day!
I bought an iPaq 6315 on its launch day in 2004 (!) with a 3.5 inch screen, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GSM, and put a 2GB SD card in it. Until the iPhone gets 3G and GPS, it doesn't do anything the 6315 won't do (except the visual voice mail thingie, but that's candy, not a deal breaker).
if you include _all financial instruments_ and trading partner countries, your trading deficit will be exactly ZERO. the trade is offset exactly by the financial instruments. by definition.
for the three cases you cite weakening the economy:
the "things" you have bought - in any case, whether you buy them to add value or if it depreciates, it doesn't necessarily lower your net worth, and the result would be the same regardless of who you bought from.
your ability to buy decreasing - this makes no sense. who you buy from makes no direct difference on your "ability to buy" - if you mean net worth, covered above, if you mean cash flow, then it doesn't matter TO YOU who you bought a particular product from (except for price)
foreign ownership increases - how? by them reinvesting in US companies like any other stockholder. you can't complain on both sides of the transaction -> USD leaving country = bad, USD entering country = good. If the company doesn't do PROFITABLE things with the equity money they've been given, it's their fault. If they buy other raw materials, etc in the US, that's the point I was trying to make - USD eventually get invested in our markets, so a trade deficit has NO impact from that perspective overall. It comes down to getting out of industries where we have no competitive advantage, and maximizing those where we do.
Actually, we don't "owe" them anything on the trade deficit, any more than you owe your supermarket something because you have a trade deficit with them. Trade partner A pays an agreed cash amount $x for goods and services to trade partner B. If we just stop here, there's a trade deficit because there's a cash flow in one direction. It's still not an issue in itself because goods and services of an equal value flow in the other direction. There isn't any additional expense "owed" because of it.
Goods are manufactured where they can be most efficiently, and, for those products, there should be a net cash inflow to producer countries. For cheap manufactured goods, it's a GOOD THING(tm) that the US has a net cash outflow. There are other goods/services where there are net cash inflows. It isn't even necessarily a good thing to have a trade balance or surplus, either. For a trading partner with extra USD, all of that foreign currency has to (eventually) be traded or invested back in the US, which is exactly what would happen if these products were sold internally.
Now, the budget deficit - that's a real deficit, and a real problem, but the trade "deficit" is simply little more than a scare idea. It still potentially applies to strategic/national security type availability reasons, NOT purely economic ones, but that's never the context it's raised in.
First, your use of the word "right" implies a claim on others. In all cases other than the one you state, where someone cannot work for their own food, there is no valid claim on the work of another person.
Second, having the choice to do nothing is not the obligation to do nothing.
There are benefits beyond monetary when helping others. Give 100 people the opportunity (but not the obligation) to help the truly needy, and many will. In fact, many already do through charity. You need more faith in your fellow man. Obligate 100 people to give money to the government, and you guarantee those assets will be inefficiently allocated.
(I'm not claiming there's no need for a government, and that it shouldn't be funded by _all of_ its citizens, but I do advocate an extraordinaly small scope for such a structure... ironically, the structure actually provided for by the US Constitution would do nicely...)
You actually like the ideas of libertarianism, not anarchy. You've almost got it - it's about keeping the ruling class (of all parties) secure, and the only way to do that is to make people dependent on them. The only way to do that is to give them something they should already provide for themselves, and the only way to do that is to tax the living daylights out of everything of value... If people were allowed to be responsible for themselves, instead of complaining about how much some other guy is making or demanding some new "right/benefit" from the politicians - who are only too happy to provide it, the rest of it would be as seen as obviously as ridiculous (and, ultimately, unsustainable) as it actually is.
IT'S A J-O-K-E.
Say this slowly, over and over, then reread his post:
owa - tado - piam
actually, I'm pretty happy with my iPaq 6315 - BT, WiFi, GSM/GPRS, and a big color screen. With a 1GB card, it's my MP3 player, too. If it had GPS, like most newer devices, it'd be pretty near perfect.
My wife gave me a 60GB iPod, beautiful piece of engineering, but it's finding most use in the car - for most uses having 1 device to carry around is so much more convenient, especially with a BT headset.
Obviously, YMMV, but, if you can decide on exactly the features you want, there's most likely a decently converged device available that has that set of features...
- John
The point is that metadata is useful, or even mandatory, for allowing certain internal workflow or functionality, but sensitive enough that you'd never want that metadata to go out with the published version of the document.
I've been on both sides of this problem with current Windows/Office implementations - receiving sales or RFP information that included "hidden" revision or comment information intended for another client, or catching similar information in documents heading out the door.
Within Office, there's a Remove Hidden Data add-in that allows you to clean up documents before publishing. Having this functionality enforced somehow once you leave a specified environment would be extremely helpful, while allowing you to leverage the advantages of tagging your file (i.e. if I do anything that looks like publishing, strip off all the metadata in the process)
$0.02
hmmm, let's see, most big payout lottery odds are in the several millions : one range...
Considering the WTC disaster alone, then of 240,000,000 US citizens, 3000 dead means about 80,000 : 1 - even considering the entire world's population ~6B, it's only 2M : 1 for that act alone - still far less than most lotteries.
nope, not a better chance at all. Your gratuitous comment lets people forget that terrorism IS a threat we have to take seriously. We need to realize that there _is_ a present danger to us from it, and that we must actively work to protect our societies. We may not like to face that fact, but that doesn't make it go away.
Insightful, indeed...
nice reply. it's clear the only difference between you and him is that he KNOWS what he has to learn (and all the attendant consequences).
Your wife plays games, and you're complaining about anything??!? :) I thought I had it good (and I do) when my wife wanted a DirecTivo so we could record Green Bay Packer games out-of-market, but I can't get her near a game, PC or console... Consider yourself lucky!
nice post - it cracks me up that this long after your post, noone's commented on the funniest part of your post - the offhand reference to dihydrogen monoxide poisoning. Well - it cracked me up :)
FYI - He's publicly apologized for this incident, and has stated that recorders should have been allowed, and will be in the future at his speeches. So give him that much credit, at least.
Depending on the audience, and his capacity in speaking to them, I can see any number of reasons why he'd be within his rights to request no recorders. Whether it's politically a wise idea, even if within his rights, is another question...
Speaking as a private citizen at a private event, the organizers of the event certainly have the right to limit recording devices, and could defer to his wishes in setting that policy. If speaking as a representative of government, though, his remarks belong on the record.
All this talk about Ashcroft is amusing, too...most references are a little short on actual facts and long on hyperbole - usually misstating the reach and effect of Patriot. There really aren't many changes to long existing policy, with the exception that agencies can actually share information. Please don't reply disputing this unless you can quote an actual example of someone's speech being muzzled (or even "chilled") as a direct result of it.
The fact that we're discussing the merits of Patriot is almost, on its face, proof enough that the system is working. Everyone is, correctly, concerned about preserving our rights. Very few actually understand what that means... In this case it means specifying as an act of the legislature exactly how law enforcement and intelligence can legally act. Truly worrying, from a rights perspective, would be no such public discussion, and having these agencies privately and secretly deciding what policy should be, without fear of public reprisal.
Strictly, yes, it is ok to detain enemy combatants but not american citizens. You are right - semantics are crucially important here. If they're not American citizens, or if they are citizens effectively renouncing their citizenship by abetting the enemy, then rules of war and not rules of law should apply.
You seem to think that there's some overarching right to freedom beyond what the armed forces and other means of force carve out for you.
In theory, we all agree that there should be absolute rights without armed backup. In practice, only those honest with themselves realize how ridiculous that statement is.
If there's only one thing any political side should be able to agree on, it's that the point of government is first and foremost to protect the rights of its citizens from being forcibly abrogated by foreign combatants. By definition, they do not acknowledge the government's authority over them, so they are not subject to the laws of the country.
Really, it's not hard. If we decide to allow what you claim is liberty to non-citizens in this regard, we do it at cost to the liberty (and lives) of citizens. From a government's perspective, that would be an immoral position to take.
Spending money to get a political message out is political speech. It has impact far greater than any of the other methods you mentioned, and, indeed, is the primary way political communication happens in this country. Sure, an NYT letter (or even an OpEd) may be more articluate, and well conceived, than a 30 second TV ad, but far less than 1% of the target audience will ever see it, and, frankly, less than 1% of even those people will actually read it critically. Once we agree on this point, much of the disagreement between our positions goes quietly away.
:)
There are many thing I disagree with in both the RNC and DNC (as I'd gather is true for you as well). The other groups you cite are similar in that like minded people (individuals) have banded together to advance issues, collectively, that not everyone agrees with. The fact that they're not universally popular is the POINT behind why political speech must be protected. Once these groups are viewed as entities composed of individuals gathered (essentially) for the express purpose of maximizing their collective impact for their chosen cause, it's hard to see how you make the distinction between action permissible for individuals but not similarly permissible for groups.
I'm always critical of any measure to "protect" one of my rights by limiting it in any way. This, again, is a clear attempt to control who can say what, with clear advantage to the existing party mechanisms over any advocacy groups. Whether you consider these to be shells or not is immaterial - Congress has no right to muzzle me or any group I advocate. In fact, without that explicit bright red line, most of the other rights we hold can be picked off at their leisure - complaint will be reduced to blogs like Slashdot, which (to one significant figure) nobody reads...
Thanks for a thoughtful reply - you don't see many here. I hope I've forced you to at least review some principles here as much as I have had to.
The lawsuits to overturn McCain-Feingold are explicitly about preserving your rights to free political speech. The legal types that want to take it away because it's inconvenient to their status quo (and who you shoud really be mad at) were the reason it passed in Congress. It's interesting that the only bipartisan interest these lawmakers seem to have is maintaining their own incumbency... By the way - no reasonable debate has happened in Congress for decades, and a court challenge is the only honorable way left to try to preserve your right to have your opinions on political matters expressed.
Whether actual debate should happen in Congress is another discussion...it's one reasonable position to think that your rep should vote for the principles that he espoused when he was elected, i.e. the reasons the people elected him, rather than change his ideology from issue to issue. That discussion, however interesting, is beside your original point, except that if it's understood that partisan infighting rules once people are elected, it's even more important for individuals to be able to express themselves politlcally during the election process.
As to Luskin, he makes his public living Fisking the distortions that Krugman uses to make his living, and Krugman appears to have crossed over the line by accusing him of being a criminal. There was never the hope that these two partisans would debate practically with the hope of coming to a joint understanding, so your plaintive request seems to be misplaced from the outset. If someone called you a stalker, you're a better person than most if your first thought is to call him and work out your differences using best argument over the coffee table.
Good luck!
Should they change to a better, more realistic distribution model? Absolutely.
Don't like their methods or the state of things right now? Tough...
Reread what you wrote, it doesn't really make independent sense or advance your argument.
Serious academics with ideas that can be successful in the marketplace start companies to leverage their ideas all the time to make a profit. They protect their investment of their own intellectual property through the use of patents and copyrights, where appropriate.
There's no reasonable way to argue that people who come up with ideas shouldn't be able to protect their IP or other unique work output value through patents and copyrights. Things would simply stagnate. I do agree that perpetual copyright renewal is a Bad Thing (tm), and that, eventually, all covered work should fall into public domain.
Seriously, though. You're angry because people own ideas for a length of time? Of course they do - it's the output of their labor! And you want to be taken seriously? (real question - please answer) Are you against private property ownership, too? If not, where's the distinction made in your mind? Where is the incentive for the individual to create something and be denied any advantage his creation might provide?
Ayn Rand wasn't talking to the "academics" without the ability to understand working and benfiting from that effort individually. I know that there are many academics who view their work as completely compatible with her worldview.
BTW - Good luck passing the qualifying exam...