Sorry, but the analogy falls flat. Government and private purchases are legally different.
How? Are you going to actually make an argument, or simply reply with "no its not"?
The analogy with bills and receipts also falls flat; I wasn't suggesting to let the government rifle through your private papers. I was suggesting that if you want a particular class of contract to be enforceable through a public court, you should have to make it public
So you wish to withhold justice unless people comply with your demands to let government rifle through their private papers. That's not a particularly useful distinction.
Finally, even if you think that salary falls under a "right to privacy", there is a difference between privacy for human beings and privacy for corporations.
So a business run by one person wouldn't be required to divulge this (after all, he's a person!), but a business run as a corporation would (it's a corporation, and therefore eeeevil).
So, you haven't presented much of an argument so far other than "that's the way it has always been done".
And you haven't presented much of an argument so far other than "I want to know, so you should be compelled to tell me".
First, this is not just a "contractual requirement"; government procurement is regulated by government regulations, not just contractual terms.
Yes, it is. The government's procurement policy is internal - it only applies to government employees. My company has procurement policies that it's officers are required to adhere to when making purchases for the business as well. The only difference here is that the government is a large enough customer that it can get away with dictating very onerous terms in its purchase agreements.
Second, your response is totally besides the point. My point was that widespread disclosure of contract terms would be a good thing. Do you disagree with that? On what grounds? What public interests are served by keeping contracts secret?
The same public interest that prevents me from nosing through all your bills and receipts. It's none of the public's damn business - just like the contract between you and your employer detailing how much money you earn.
That's great! Now we just need to amend the definition such that "Criticizing the Party" and "Drawing a Picture of Mohammad" aren't Free Speech, and we'll have converted China and Iran to Western Democracy!
Oh, the things you can accomplish by dicking around with definitions. Next I'm going to redefine billionaire and be rich!
We've had a lorikeet before. I don't believe they have the attention span to be "angry". I'm also unaware as how you'd differentiate drunkenness from their usual behaviour.
If the website redirects to an iframe (I thought these got phased out in like HTML4???)
You're thinking of framesets. Iframes are used far, far more now in conjunction with AJAXy stuff and embedding third-party crap than they were last decade.
Actually, yes they do. It's called "not accepting the cookie". Just because they've got their browser set to automatically accept every cookie ever sent to them doesn't mean they have no possible way to opt-out.
You mean by not providing extra welfare, lowering requirements for entry into tertiary education, or providing special privilege based on race? Hey, I'm all for that.
At least three of my friends have gun licenses, all for recreational purposes. And I'm not even in a demographic where you'd expect gun ownership to be particularly high.
Non-opt out Internet filtering.
Hasn't happened yet
Now P2P traffic monitoring.
Huh? Where did you get P2P from? They're substituting big, expensive, noisy choppers for small, cheap, quiet drones
How long before they regulate out of existence the Aussie equivalent of the pit bull - the legendary Australian Cattle Dog?
Actually, the American Pit Bull is pretty much legislated out of existence. On the other hand, nobody's ever suggested legislation against cattle dogs as far as I'm aware - they don't have a breed temperament conducive to excessive aggression, which is why the pit bull is heavily legislated against.
Paying money as part of a cross license agreement is kinda standard practice in the technology industry
So was paying money to mobsters back in the day.
While you might not agree with software patents, they are in currently part of the legal system.
Which is why I never said "patents are illegal", but said that patents are an immoral extortion racket. The fact that our legal system currently endorses immoral extortion rackets is a flaw, not a feature.
If you buy a stack of gold now (at what, fast approaching $2000 an ounce), and then everyone decided en masse that it was no longer an investment product worth having
You face that problem with any investment: invest in vacuum tubes just before capacitors are invented; invest in pork bellies before public taste suddenly swings to lamb; invest in property just before the debt hits the fan.
the only people you would be able to sell it to would be jewellers and, er, audio cable makers
Also NASA, for shielding on satellites, ruggedised electronics, and an assortment of other things. High conductivity and resistance to corrosives are useful in all sorts of applications.
Gold has an intrinsic value as a material for various technological uses, outside of its use for human adornment (which is really just an extension of its scarcity, just like its use as a currency).
And Congress won't act unless big stakeholders (read: big companies) make a stink.
Quotes like this highlight the true root of the problem. While Congress acts on behalf of corporations instead of the public, anything that favours the public is going to be incidental. There's no point in trying to reform the patent system, unless the political system which undergirds it is reformed first.
That's why we let a fictional, non-functional application veto the production of an actual, useful product. Although, looking at America's industry and economics, it does seem that they value fiction over reality.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, but the analogy falls flat. Government and private purchases are legally different.
How? Are you going to actually make an argument, or simply reply with "no its not"?
The analogy with bills and receipts also falls flat; I wasn't suggesting to let the government rifle through your private papers. I was suggesting that if you want a particular class of contract to be enforceable through a public court, you should have to make it public
So you wish to withhold justice unless people comply with your demands to let government rifle through their private papers. That's not a particularly useful distinction.
Finally, even if you think that salary falls under a "right to privacy", there is a difference between privacy for human beings and privacy for corporations.
So a business run by one person wouldn't be required to divulge this (after all, he's a person!), but a business run as a corporation would (it's a corporation, and therefore eeeevil).
So, you haven't presented much of an argument so far other than "that's the way it has always been done".
And you haven't presented much of an argument so far other than "I want to know, so you should be compelled to tell me".
First, this is not just a "contractual requirement"; government procurement is regulated by government regulations, not just contractual terms.
Yes, it is. The government's procurement policy is internal - it only applies to government employees. My company has procurement policies that it's officers are required to adhere to when making purchases for the business as well. The only difference here is that the government is a large enough customer that it can get away with dictating very onerous terms in its purchase agreements.
Second, your response is totally besides the point. My point was that widespread disclosure of contract terms would be a good thing. Do you disagree with that? On what grounds? What public interests are served by keeping contracts secret?
The same public interest that prevents me from nosing through all your bills and receipts. It's none of the public's damn business - just like the contract between you and your employer detailing how much money you earn.
His contribution will be sorely missed
No, it won't. He might be sorely missed, but his contribution is still here.
That's great! Now we just need to amend the definition such that "Criticizing the Party" and "Drawing a Picture of Mohammad" aren't Free Speech, and we'll have converted China and Iran to Western Democracy!
Oh, the things you can accomplish by dicking around with definitions. Next I'm going to redefine billionaire and be rich!
This solves one problem only once. Then the portfolios passes to the next person and the problem repeats itself.
So does the solution. Repeat as necessary
We've had a lorikeet before. I don't believe they have the attention span to be "angry". I'm also unaware as how you'd differentiate drunkenness from their usual behaviour.
If the website redirects to an iframe (I thought these got phased out in like HTML4???)
You're thinking of framesets. Iframes are used far, far more now in conjunction with AJAXy stuff and embedding third-party crap than they were last decade.
Actually, yes they do. It's called "not accepting the cookie". Just because they've got their browser set to automatically accept every cookie ever sent to them doesn't mean they have no possible way to opt-out.
You mean by not providing extra welfare, lowering requirements for entry into tertiary education, or providing special privilege based on race? Hey, I'm all for that.
Virtually no private ownership of guns any more
At least three of my friends have gun licenses, all for recreational purposes. And I'm not even in a demographic where you'd expect gun ownership to be particularly high.
Non-opt out Internet filtering.
Hasn't happened yet
Now P2P traffic monitoring.
Huh? Where did you get P2P from? They're substituting big, expensive, noisy choppers for small, cheap, quiet drones
How long before they regulate out of existence the Aussie equivalent of the pit bull - the legendary Australian Cattle Dog?
Actually, the American Pit Bull is pretty much legislated out of existence. On the other hand, nobody's ever suggested legislation against cattle dogs as far as I'm aware - they don't have a breed temperament conducive to excessive aggression, which is why the pit bull is heavily legislated against.
It's not windows' fault this time.
Check /var/log/syslog - you'll find a similar bunch of arcane "errors" that look disturbing to a typical clueless user.
Paying money as part of a cross license agreement is kinda standard practice in the technology industry
So was paying money to mobsters back in the day.
While you might not agree with software patents, they are in currently part of the legal system.
Which is why I never said "patents are illegal", but said that patents are an immoral extortion racket. The fact that our legal system currently endorses immoral extortion rackets is a flaw, not a feature.
So now instead of paying protection money they are paying stupid money for Motorola and billions more buying patents from IBM and others
Fixed that for you. As for Google's motivation, probably "if once you have paid him the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane."
Don't we skip every second windows release anyway?
Windows 3.0 ...
Windows 3.1
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows ME
Windows XP
Windows Vista
Windows 7
Exactly - that's the point the OP was making in comparing gold to BitCoins. Unlike almost anything else, BitCoins have no intrinsic value
If you buy a stack of gold now (at what, fast approaching $2000 an ounce), and then everyone decided en masse that it was no longer an investment product worth having
You face that problem with any investment: invest in vacuum tubes just before capacitors are invented; invest in pork bellies before public taste suddenly swings to lamb; invest in property just before the debt hits the fan.
the only people you would be able to sell it to would be jewellers and, er, audio cable makers
Also NASA, for shielding on satellites, ruggedised electronics, and an assortment of other things. High conductivity and resistance to corrosives are useful in all sorts of applications.
And you never intend to sell another
Uh-huh. Because every other economic system produces highly reliable, cheap goods.
I think you mean "welcome to reality"
Yeah, because building exploding spacecraft is a surefire way to economic prosperity.
This accounts only for a small fraction of its market value.
Which is why the phrase used was "intrinsic value" not "bloody huge intrinsic value".
Gold has an intrinsic value as a material for various technological uses, outside of its use for human adornment (which is really just an extension of its scarcity, just like its use as a currency).
And Congress won't act unless big stakeholders (read: big companies) make a stink.
Quotes like this highlight the true root of the problem. While Congress acts on behalf of corporations instead of the public, anything that favours the public is going to be incidental. There's no point in trying to reform the patent system, unless the political system which undergirds it is reformed first.
That's why we let a fictional, non-functional application veto the production of an actual, useful product. Although, looking at America's industry and economics, it does seem that they value fiction over reality.
Obviously, you could only read half the post before your blinkers of rage came down.
if we keep breeding like rabbits
What, like the 1.8 fertility rate (below replacement) of the US? Or the 1.5 fertility rate of Europe?