Anyway, I played red book basic, blue book expert, and 1st or second edition AD&D. Dungeon Master's Guide had the big demon on it, Player's Manual had some sort of warrior, maybe?
While I knew the rules for AD&D pretty well, I think I like basic best. You didn't have to get bogged down in encumberance. Ick.
Getting McCain's support is not really an endorsement. He's not terribly worried about proposing laws that fit within the Constitution. e.g. with his "campain finance reform", he had sections that he thought were unconstitutional, but he was happy to let the Judicial branch edit it out later in lawsuits.
His fans can be rather... enthusiastic. I remember a Lieutenant I worked with who was a fan. He was the embodiment of "McCainiac".
Even I wouldn't ever compare NASA, and maybe no govenment organization, to a UFO cult that is mostly interested in sex parties. (google a bit for the Raelians)
One big problem is the Shuttle program NOW is a failure. It is prohibitively expensive, and has more than blown out the cost estimates from the early days of the program.
NASA would be better off using throw away rockets. Or better off again releasing all their scientific docs and info to the public. Let the Chinese have space. The US gov't doesn't seem to want it.
What I suspect would happen is it would freeze out any improvements. One thing that happens once a government standard (usually minimum standard) is in place, than it is officially "good enough".
Alternatively, companies then focus their effort on getting taxpayer money spent to improve / extend the service instead of doing it themselves. This would possibly eliminate mobile phones -- why would a company investigate this if the gov't did their piece for "free?"
Finally, gov't only likes dealing with one vendor at a time. It is a NIGHTMARE to bid on gov't contracts. You need a special number, for which you have to go through an extensive approval process, or you hook into a company that has already done that. (This is a way to get around many of the requirements that Congress thought would be helpful.) All of this is a barrier to entry for small companies and individuals, any of which may have already built a better mousetrap.
I use some simplistic definitions. Here, since companies that sell (or don't sell, like debian) linux are eating into proprietary Unix and MS market share, I call that competition. I think this is fair, since we already speak of "competing standards."
M$ cannot buy the company, cannot undercut it's pricing, cannot cut off its air supply.
We agree. Opensource is something new and different.
IP laws are a bit funny. There is a fair argument to scrap Patents and move it into copyright law. I have links in an old post of mine, here
The Baen free library has some links to a copule of great speaches in England a hundred years ago about the extension of copyrights. Very well done.
I wasn't particularly wild about this article, but it's interesting anyway. "The Private Production of Defense" by Hans-Herman Hoppe of UNLV.
Private Production of Defense it's a pdf.
Yes, consumers paid for the telephone network. And in a free market, those monies would be paid voluntarily to the phone company for producing a product.
Yes, the government can mandate some good things. But about the best you can say for government mandates is that if they're the kind you like (and other people would pay for, too), the private sector would do it. And while discussions about what might have happened are fun, I can as easily imagine that if the government hadn't mandated copper being strung all over, the phone companies would have put in satellite phones, developed with all the money they saved in taxes.
Sure, there are inefficiencies in the private sector. And they are vicously attacked by competitors. One reason Alan Greenspan (the chairman of the Federal Reserve for non-US folks) kept lowering lending rates is so the Dow Jones wouldn't tank. Well, it did anyway, and liquidated the inefficient firms created and bouyed up through malinvestment. How did it help anyone that the bubble was sustained?
Enron is a great case for this. Why did the employees have a lot of Enron stock? Congress decided it would be a fine and noble thing if employees owned more of their companies, and passed laws to make this really easy. So when the company tanked, the well meaning Congress had helped tank the employees, too.
The Swiss have a very decentralized military, and they haven't been invaded in a long time. I agree, though, if you want to be an empire, taxation and a Federal military is the way to go.
And the post office . . . who says it should cost as much for me to send a letter from Colorado to Maine as it does from L.A. to San Francisco? Or down the street? I do know, though, that if you try to setup your own 1st class mail company you'll be arrested.
No, not Ayn Rand, but more Paleolibertarian. The nice things about "natural monopolies" is they don't exist in the real world. The standard examples of companies like Standard Oil fall short, mostly because they were in the process of having their butt handed to them in a sling by smaller competitors when the Sherman Act came through.
In the Austrian school of economics you find out that a company can never get big enough to fully crush all competition. Ludwig von Mises proved, for example, in the 1930's that Socialism couldn't work because in a planned economy, you just don't know how much stuff is supposed to cost. Socialism
Small companies form, take those monopoly rents away, and the big company loses market share. Open source software is doing this now. Yes, Microsoft has a big market share, but linux is severly impinging on the server market, and threatens the desktop market.
Cell phones are doing this now, both in the US and overseas. It's a great way to solve the old last mile problem. Who knows, maybe without the huge, inefficient power monopolies we'd have a lot of nuclear power plants, or smaller, more numerous plants without the cost of the extremely long transmission lines with the booster stations, or wind power, or even more solar! But it's the government restrictions on who could enter the market that causes market irregularities.
As long as the government doesn't mandate or forbid things, we are rid of the monopolies. The definition of monopoly was originally based on whether or not the government allowed competition.
The problems in the marketplace aren't "market failures" that the government needs to fix for you (at no small cost), but areas where the government has forced things to work a particular way.
Entrepreneurs like to make money. And as long as they aren't forbidden to entera sector of the market, and it's profitable, they will. And it's the customers that vote with their pocketbooks that allow it to happen. It's a beautiful thing.
The problem here is it's not our money, it's their money. If you think it's your money, try taking your part back, or not giving it to them in the first place.:-)
I know someone has already mentioned Real Genius -- remember back in the 60s-80s when many, many grants had to have a Department of Defense component? This is no different; this is a big warm war on terror, instead of a big cold war on the Communists.
The government was working for the advancement of knowledge, but not for general knowledge. It's for the advancement of knowledge the government wants, and to keep from the people it doesn't want to know.
This underscores why the greatest dangers to our freedoms, including our freedom of speech, doesn't come from our government (although it is a threat, as current trends toward greater authoritariansim in the terrorist hysteria left by the wake of 9/11), but from private enterprise, corporations, and simple, unfettered greed.
Any "threat" here, comes from government. Government has to be the source of the threat. The threat is a lawsuit, right? Is this case tried in a company court, or in a government court? If the blogger is found guilty, does the company send its private police to collect, or is it the government police?
Corporations are created by government. They are artificial persons. They have no rights not given to them by government. While you can help change the behavior of corporations through boycots, letters, etc., the source of what they can and can not do is government. If there is anything you don't like about corporation's powers, call your congressman. It was probably his fault in the first place.
No one will see this so far down, but it's interesting anyway. Someone has put up a protest site claiming that the name "The Two Towers" is insensitive because of the destruction of the World Trade Center.
I haven't figured out if it's a spoof or if these folks really are crazy. Twotowersprotest.org if you want to check it out.
Pshaw. Imposition of religion involves 1) Convert or I'll whack you, and then 2) Why don't I stay here and make sure you don't switch away. These folks have chosen to stay Christians.
Let's face it -- grade inflation exists lots of places. Read the negative reviews first. In general you'll find that one company / group won't go out of their way to try and tank another company (any press is good press), so these are more likely to be genuine.
I've been looking for an article published in the last month (cant' find it, darn it), but I think Bryant Park has been privately run for a few years. It used to be terrible, then the city decided to hand it over to a corporation.
Now they have private police, charge good sized rents to vendors who want to sell goods there, and people who want to go. It used to be full of muggers, vagrants, and drug dealers.
Well intentioned laws are not allowed to have bad consequences. It's a line from Fallen Angel by Larry Niven, assuming I remembered it correctly. Basically, even though the law as written should apply in these strange cases, it won't.
Or, if you prefer the Atlas Shrugged side of things, these laws are just passed to make sure everyone is a lawbreaker.
The theory came out in the 1930's, and was put forth by Otto Schindewolf and Richard Goldschmidt. It was originally called the "hopeful monster" theory.
It's not a resell; the home viewers buy a copy, and give it to CleanFlicks to edit. (You can send in a copy you already own, too.) So, it is no different from a parent automatically muting a scene, or fast forwarding. You can't do those things in the movies, either.
Here's another angle. The movie companies willingly sold copies of their movies to CleanFlicks. The movie companies are allowed to refuse to sell to people and organizations they don't like.
If they don't like what CleanFlicks is doing, then don't sell them movies.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyway, I played red book basic, blue book expert, and 1st or second edition AD&D. Dungeon Master's Guide had the big demon on it, Player's Manual had some sort of warrior, maybe?
While I knew the rules for AD&D pretty well, I think I like basic best. You didn't have to get bogged down in encumberance. Ick.
Outstanding. A fine analogy.
His fans can be rather ... enthusiastic. I remember a Lieutenant I worked with who was a fan. He was the embodiment of "McCainiac".
Well I'll be darned.
Can you finally vertically maximize windows again? It was dissapointing when they removed that for the 2.0 release.
One big problem is the Shuttle program NOW is a failure. It is prohibitively expensive, and has more than blown out the cost estimates from the early days of the program.
NASA would be better off using throw away rockets. Or better off again releasing all their scientific docs and info to the public. Let the Chinese have space. The US gov't doesn't seem to want it.
Alternatively, companies then focus their effort on getting taxpayer money spent to improve / extend the service instead of doing it themselves. This would possibly eliminate mobile phones -- why would a company investigate this if the gov't did their piece for "free?"
Finally, gov't only likes dealing with one vendor at a time. It is a NIGHTMARE to bid on gov't contracts. You need a special number, for which you have to go through an extensive approval process, or you hook into a company that has already done that. (This is a way to get around many of the requirements that Congress thought would be helpful.) All of this is a barrier to entry for small companies and individuals, any of which may have already built a better mousetrap.
IP laws are a bit funny. There is a fair argument to scrap Patents and move it into copyright law. I have links in an old post of mine, here The Baen free library has some links to a copule of great speaches in England a hundred years ago about the extension of copyrights. Very well done.
I wasn't particularly wild about this article, but it's interesting anyway. "The Private Production of Defense" by Hans-Herman Hoppe of UNLV. Private Production of Defense it's a pdf.
Yes, the government can mandate some good things. But about the best you can say for government mandates is that if they're the kind you like (and other people would pay for, too), the private sector would do it. And while discussions about what might have happened are fun, I can as easily imagine that if the government hadn't mandated copper being strung all over, the phone companies would have put in satellite phones, developed with all the money they saved in taxes.
Sure, there are inefficiencies in the private sector. And they are vicously attacked by competitors. One reason Alan Greenspan (the chairman of the Federal Reserve for non-US folks) kept lowering lending rates is so the Dow Jones wouldn't tank. Well, it did anyway, and liquidated the inefficient firms created and bouyed up through malinvestment. How did it help anyone that the bubble was sustained?
Enron is a great case for this. Why did the employees have a lot of Enron stock? Congress decided it would be a fine and noble thing if employees owned more of their companies, and passed laws to make this really easy. So when the company tanked, the well meaning Congress had helped tank the employees, too.
The Swiss have a very decentralized military, and they haven't been invaded in a long time. I agree, though, if you want to be an empire, taxation and a Federal military is the way to go.
And the post office . . . who says it should cost as much for me to send a letter from Colorado to Maine as it does from L.A. to San Francisco? Or down the street? I do know, though, that if you try to setup your own 1st class mail company you'll be arrested.
In the Austrian school of economics you find out that a company can never get big enough to fully crush all competition. Ludwig von Mises proved, for example, in the 1930's that Socialism couldn't work because in a planned economy, you just don't know how much stuff is supposed to cost. Socialism
Small companies form, take those monopoly rents away, and the big company loses market share. Open source software is doing this now. Yes, Microsoft has a big market share, but linux is severly impinging on the server market, and threatens the desktop market.
Cell phones are doing this now, both in the US and overseas. It's a great way to solve the old last mile problem. Who knows, maybe without the huge, inefficient power monopolies we'd have a lot of nuclear power plants, or smaller, more numerous plants without the cost of the extremely long transmission lines with the booster stations, or wind power, or even more solar! But it's the government restrictions on who could enter the market that causes market irregularities.
Read more about the exiciting world of Austrian Economics at the Mises institute and LewRockwell.com
The problems in the marketplace aren't "market failures" that the government needs to fix for you (at no small cost), but areas where the government has forced things to work a particular way.
Entrepreneurs like to make money. And as long as they aren't forbidden to entera sector of the market, and it's profitable, they will. And it's the customers that vote with their pocketbooks that allow it to happen. It's a beautiful thing.
From the FAX:
The interesting part is Cryptome is saying a pgp signature equals a sworn affidavit.
I know someone has already mentioned Real Genius -- remember back in the 60s-80s when many, many grants had to have a Department of Defense component? This is no different; this is a big warm war on terror, instead of a big cold war on the Communists.
The government was working for the advancement of knowledge, but not for general knowledge. It's for the advancement of knowledge the government wants, and to keep from the people it doesn't want to know.
Any "threat" here, comes from government. Government has to be the source of the threat. The threat is a lawsuit, right? Is this case tried in a company court, or in a government court? If the blogger is found guilty, does the company send its private police to collect, or is it the government police?
Corporations are created by government. They are artificial persons. They have no rights not given to them by government. While you can help change the behavior of corporations through boycots, letters, etc., the source of what they can and can not do is government. If there is anything you don't like about corporation's powers, call your congressman. It was probably his fault in the first place.
I haven't figured out if it's a spoof or if these folks really are crazy. Twotowersprotest.org if you want to check it out.
Pshaw. Imposition of religion involves 1) Convert or I'll whack you, and then 2) Why don't I stay here and make sure you don't switch away. These folks have chosen to stay Christians.
Let's face it -- grade inflation exists lots of places. Read the negative reviews first. In general you'll find that one company / group won't go out of their way to try and tank another company (any press is good press), so these are more likely to be genuine.
I've been looking for an article published in the last month (cant' find it, darn it), but I think Bryant Park has been privately run for a few years. It used to be terrible, then the city decided to hand it over to a corporation. Now they have private police, charge good sized rents to vendors who want to sell goods there, and people who want to go. It used to be full of muggers, vagrants, and drug dealers.
That's the strangest part. How do you get 20 thousand libertarians to agree to do any one thing?
Or, if you prefer the Atlas Shrugged side of things, these laws are just passed to make sure everyone is a lawbreaker.
There are a few folks out there who would throw out the whole patent system in favor of copyright law. Check out http://www.kinsellalaw.com/archive/2002_07_01_arch ive.php has some links. Or you can just read Stephan Kinsella's article on "Against Intellectual Property" from the Journal of Libertarian Studies http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/15_2/15_2_1.pdf (pdf) if you like.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/wallace/wallace55.html
The theory came out in the 1930's, and was put forth by Otto Schindewolf and Richard Goldschmidt. It was originally called the "hopeful monster" theory.
Hmm, I wonder what their return policy is?
Here's another angle. The movie companies willingly sold copies of their movies to CleanFlicks. The movie companies are allowed to refuse to sell to people and organizations they don't like. If they don't like what CleanFlicks is doing, then don't sell them movies.