butt technology.. i made myself laugh on that typo.. what the hell is butt technology?!
Those of us in at the Tp Research Institute for Environmental Responsibility think making sure that a single square of TP is sufficient for every bathroom visit is nothing to laugh about.
I'm always hearing this "but the population is too sparse" excuse about why the US is falling behind so badly in broadband deployment. Well, that's all it is - an excuse. And it tells a lot about how the US has changed in the last 100 years.
You didn't hear these kind of excuses when the telegraph was the big communications network - it went to every town. And you didn't hear it when rail travel became prevalent - those tracks went everywhere, and if a mountain needed blasting to make way, the mountain got blasted. You can claim the Chinese worked like slaves to lay track - which may be true, but there is no shortage of cheap foreign labor in the US today - and they could be laying fiber (in fact, a lot of them are - just not enough).
The problem, as usual, is the self-serving traitorous bastards running Washington (the White House *and* congress - especially congress). When WW I started up, the US needed planes. Did they let the Wright Brothers push them around because they had some patent? No. They were like "look, guys, we need planes for the war, and you can't make them fast enough, so were throwing out your patent."
What happens now when we need equipment for the war? The multinational corporation making hummers whines "but we've got a contract - we make hummers and that's what we're gonna make." So what happens? We buy hummers that get our soldiers killed instead of the anti-road-bomb armored equipment we really need. (check this out). What's that about? Some greedy frackin senators with their palms greased, that's what!
No more excuses. Build the infrastructure we need, make the equipment we need, and quick dicking around with the greedy corporations.
Wow - what a load of crap. Are you trying to justify your past behavior?
Genes have no concept of morality, the only thing they do is to control the fitness of the individual.
Completely wrong. Most genes (of higher life forms) CANNOT get replicated by an individual - only in a collective. That is, you need a mate. Even having "lots of sex" with random others won't help if they all get killed off because you left and weren't there to protect the young.
An individual that manages to get rid of its competitors could very well gain an advantage.
Not if he's the only one left.
Many female spiders kill their male partner after they have mated. Would it not have been much better for their specie if instead she would have let him live so that he could have mated with other females?
No, not at all - but that's a very specialized case, and it only works because that spider can produce thousands of eggs all by herself. And she dies before they are even hatched. Higher beings have a higher sense of morality precisely because their young are fewer and more vulnerable.
That is why claiming that morality is rooted in genetics is very problematical. There is no evolutionary advantage for the individual to be moral. If everyone else steals, it would be a severe biological handicap to have a genetic moral that told you not to steal. Such a gene would certainly be sifted out very quickly.
Bzzzt. You have it all wrong. Please go to the back of the class. You have a point, but it's on top of your head.
If everyone is stealing from everyone else, that's chaos, and the entire society would collapse, and the genome will end. So, yea, that gene is sifted out. But so does a gene that prevents you from ever stealing at all, even when it could save your young from starving. And that's the moral code that's been selected for: look after the society, but don't sacrifice your ability to procreate in the process. Ants will die for their queen, even for trivial reasons. But ants are built that way - only the queen can reproduce.
On the other hand, in a world full of stealers, it would definitely be a great idea to try and convince everyone else not to steal. Then there would be more left for you to steal! I think that is where morality comes from. Humans does not have a hard coded moral, but a hard coded desire to convince others to be moral.
Nice try, but that just doesn't fly. In fact, I think what you are describing sounds more like a mental illness. People are more inclined to steal from people that are least like themselves. So, there are plenty shoplifters around, a lesser number of muggers, and few that will steal from their own kin. And that, it seems, is a predisposition that is built into our genes. We are most protective of those most like ourselves, and, therefore more likely to pass on genes like our own.
Also, it's interesting that you use the word "fix", presuming that the thing in question went from a state of 'worse' to 'better'. What's the moral basis for this judgment of how 'good' someone's change in morality is?
It's t how much better you get along with the rest of the tribe, that is, how well you demonstrate empathetic behaviors in certain social situations. At least, that's the apparent thesis of the researchers. And, IMHO, not a bad one.
Maybe since you have absolutely no idea what the proposed WIPO treaty is calling for, and apparently no interest in educating yourself, you should refrain from commenting.
Oh, wait, I forgot - it's Slashdot.
I'll forgive your ignorance, but it's even more disconcerting that the mods apparently just as ignorant.
Here's a clue - this is a *good* thing. If you think you can get an angry mod together to protest that broadcasters should be able to claim copyright on public domain works, then, please, go right ahead. Frankly, I would prefer that more limits were imposed on the rights of copyright owners and broadcasters, not more.
Well, in addition to Windows Movie Maker's other obvious lack of format flaws, it does not provide nearly enough editing options for me - my camcorder and component DVD Recorder can do more. Video Studio isn't a professional-level video editing tool, but it provides at least a modicum of capabilities - only on XP, though, not on Vista.
None of the CD burning tools you mentioned will create gapless audio CDs, nor will anything else that will run on Vista for less than $100, other than Nero. Well, Roxio probably has something, but I won't even consider giving them any money, considering their behavior in the past.
WMP told me "Cannot perform the requested action" when I tried to play a DVD. Did it work for you out-of-the-box? No go for me. I have a DVD player that came with my ATI card for XP, but it refuses to install under Vista.
I've captured video from my camcorder, edited it, and performed video encoding without problems. No DRM invovled.
I've ripped CDs at lossless rates (the builtin WMP supports WMA, WMA lossless, MP3 up to 320 kbps, and WAV), and burnt it. Again, no DRM involved.
Was able to watch DVDs on my 1920x1200 monitor.
You must have added a lot of software too, then. Mind letting us know what you used that works? I wasn't able to do any video editing at all, since Video Studio refused to run, and the "patch" that was supposed to make it work in Vista removed a bunch of features that I use.
WMP told me I didn't have what I needed to play my DVDs, either.
And my burning software - only about a year old - won't work on Vista. Although I can upgrade to Nero 7 (for $69), and they say it's compatible. The interface looks horrible, though.
Even the most cynical would have to admit his heart is in the right place.
Bzzzt. Wrong. I may be pretty cynical, but there are certainly bigger cynics than me, and even *I* can see that the B&MG Foundation is *still* doing more harm to world society than they are doing good.
Here is a little informative reading for you.
Since the original article is registration-only, I will give you the gist of that one. B&MG Foundation funds are invested to the tune of about 85-90%. So the vast majority of funds are simply investments. Those investments are very often in companies that are causing gross harm to poor areas and polluting third-world environments. And don't think that the investments don't draw dividends for Microsoft. If B&MG are investing in your school, what kind of software and programming do you think you'll be teaching?
This is akin to driving 35,000 a year in your 5 MPG SUV, then claim you are an environmentalist because you gave $5 to Greenpeace last Christmas.
I don't think it was defeatism so much as a dose of reality. DRM will enter the corporate workplace because those corporations need to protect their interests. And DRM will help them do that by controlling access to information, sometimes even to comply with federal mandates. If you are able to send a memo and ensure that *only* those people that should see will be able to read it, that provides better security for your trade secrets. And if you can prove that Joe Executive never saw that memo, then that suspicious exercise of stock options will look a little more coincidental.
It also helps you to maintain privacy for your customers - something they will appreciate. "oh, look, this set of files has sensitive information in it. Let's add it to the Rights Management System." Now there is less chance of those customers being victims of identity theft.
Any time you are creating and maintaining documents or files with any kind of sensitive information, being able to specify who can view it makes a lot of sense - especially when that information needs to be disseminated through email or the corporate portal/intranet/extranet, etc.
Now when somebody points this out in a meeting with a few suits around, who is going to stand up and say "Dude, but DRM is bad, man, cause it's just the Man trying to stick it to you." ?? Do you think it's going to make a difference? You might as well recommend getting rid of SSL on the e-commerce site, or resetting all the passwords to "password" so everybody can share files more easily.
Yea, well, it *sounds* good. But coming from Hillary, I wouldn't get too excited until you see some details. When the other shoe drops, you may be hearing things like "well, you see, to maintain these important privacy protections, it's necessary to fundamentally change some things about how you access the internet.... "
Is it now considered "bashing" to be wary about people who claim to speak on behalf of God?
That was your interpretation, not, IMHO, what the OP was actually doing. Maybe I should have used the term "fear mongering" instead.
Lots of people live separated from the rights we talk about. And as the article shows, even for those who do enjoy them there is no guarantee for them being permanent. So they cannot be inherent by that definition.
No, they don't live "separated" from them - rather their rights are violated, or usurped. If you take my stuff, you have violated my right to property, but it still exists, and it's still mine. If you don't like my original definition, here's Websters': "involved in the constitution or essential character of something : belonging by nature or habit". Yea, you can chop off my finger, but it's still *my* finger - it's part of my nature.
Unless I'm a lot stronger than than everybody else, I cannot unilaterally create any rights.
WTF? "Creating rights" is something activist judges and liberals are perpetually accused of. It's not something I am talking about here. You don't create rights, they are inherent. But you must *exercise* them, and defend them. If a you are stopped by a cop, and he wants to search your car, you are free to ignore your inherent property rights and say "sure, go ahead". Defending your rights is an active process.
Rights require some kind of consensus. The way rights are created and maintained, is by building that consensus. Even organizations like RIAA and MPAA needs to buy the support of politicians and to some degree the population at large for all the new rights they create for themselves (in the form of DRM and more).
You are talking about something else, here, like laws and rules of commerce and trade that are unrelated to personal rights. I have heard a lot of people talking about how everyone should have a "right to health care". But that is not a "right" because it imposes a burden on someone else.
And I am not letting you deprive me of my right to acknowledge the people who created the rights I enjoy today.
s/created/defended/ there, fixed it for ya.
> I know personal responsibility s not in vogue these days, but it is really something that we
> should not abandon so readily.
Why are you then so willing to do it, talking about inherent rights, abandoning your responsibility for their creation and maintenance?
Hmmm... well, I'm not. But you seem content to let everyone do the work for you. Say, how about this: a bunch of us got together and arrived a the consensus that you don't really have a right to life. Will you just lay down and die?
My apologies. I see now you were only doing some religious-person bashing, which of course is perfectly acceptable in this forum.
Inherent: existing in someone or something as a permanent and inseparable element, quality, or attribute
"written down in your genes". Haha. Rich.
You have to claim and stand up for your rights. You. Not somebody else. I know personal responsibility is not in vogue these days, but it is really something that we should not abandon so readily. Makes it too easy for someone to violate your rights when you are looking to them to protect you.
What? The ability to claim that your rights are somehow "inherent", and not granted by some government body or other person?
I'm scared of too many people thinking they need to look to someone else to figure out what their rights are, because at that point they stop fighting for their rights.
This is the basis of the Constitution - that government authority flows *from* the people, not the other way around. You don't have to believe in "God" to get this idea - your "creator" can be an entity, the aether, fate, or the lucky happenstance of the right quantum sequence at the moment of the Big Bang. The basis of the Constitution is the same: that your rights are not granted, but are inherent in your very existence as a sentient being.
The idea that your rights come from somewhere else is the fundamental flaw in Gonzales' reasoning. If all your rights need to be spelled out, you might as well forget it. But that's *not* the basis of the Constitution. Instead, all your rights are intact, except a few that are *explicitly* granted to the government within the Constitution.
That's why many of the founders did not like they idea of adding the Bill of Rights. They felt that spelling out those rights would lead to a "backward" interpretation of the Constitutions. Which is exactly what we have here.
It strikes me as strange that a society which so strongly rejected the idea (if not always the practice) of central planning during the Cold War prides itself in its "master planned" communities.
WTF? If I understand your statement here, you're wondering why a group of people would be opposed to communism would want to live in a "planned" community? Maybe because planned communities offer houses (for sale) that are pleasant to live, and nearby amenities, while The Party generally offered only rat-infested tiny apartments (that you don't even own). I don't really get what this comparison is about. I've never seen a planned community that I wanted to live in, but I would take it over government housing any day. I think Jane Jacobs rejects both of these ideas.
The plans I have seen often look attractive, but on closer examination bear a striking resemblance to malls turned inside out and mixed with housing.
Well, it's an effort to bring people together, or at least provide place where they can, and less incentive to climb in the car whenever they want to go anywhere. If you have some better ideas I'd love to hear them - as great as the demand is for housing right now, we can't just stop building places to live. That would make everything so expensive there would be a lot more people on the street. There are a couple of developments here around central Virginia that have been pretty successful. The common spaces really *are* used. Planned events, concerts, and spontaneous gatherings (when the weather is nice) happen all the time.
Developers who do want to take a risk often run into senseless rules regulating every detail of their communities, such as requirements for streets big enough for fire trucks to turn around in to minimum parking spaces, wide streets, huge setbacks in front of buildings, low densities, and so forth.
This should not really be an impediment. I can see this as an issue for a very small development in a large market, but the kind of developers you are talking about should have no trouble getting some zone rules and other regulations changed when they are proposing a large development. Generally that how these things get changed.
Sprawl has happened because developers were giving people what they want. Having an affordable house with a yard for the kids and decent schools are often not available in urban environments. Urban living in a suburban area is, for many, the best of both worlds. There is demand for it, and developers are trying to meet that demand. If the spaces don't work, they will be rejected, and never built again.
The fact is, from the 1950's on, there has been a lot of development in the US that was done with cars in mind. There was no foresight, because no one saw the eventually consequences of this. Unfortunately, those areas exist and aren't going away any time soon. We just need to keep in mind that new development needs to be done with people in mind, instead of cars.
I can't believe they are calling this "quantum biology". It has nothing whatsoever to do with quantum mechanics. They are not studying sub-atomic particles, and quantum effects to *NOT* apply to reactions between among atoms and molecules. They are looking at classical processes, and possible have moved slightly out of chemistry into physics, but certainly not into quantum physics.
They may be looking at smaller things, but not small enough to consider quantum effects. I wonder if the scientists themselves are calling it that, because if so, it's pretty irresponsible. Or maybe they are just trying to stir up some "buzz" to increase their funding or something.
Terrible.
Ah, I see. I agree with you in principle, but you are mistaken that the ends *ever* justify the means. That can *never* be the case. You can argue eternally about what is moral, and whether objective morally even exists - but under *any* system that has any principals that it claims to adhere to, trying to justify an action that violates those principals because the ultimate result is part of the goal will eventually lead to collapse. It is this type of thinking that leads to things like the Spanish Inquisition, the DMCA, and suicide bombings.
It's worth stating again: the ends DO NOT justify the means.
Adopting your opponents methods to defeat them, doesn't work in the larger picture.
Can you point out where the "opponents" have proposed sanctioning all scientists that support the global warming predictions? Because I think I missed that one.
Thomas' dissent was logical, too. He made some good arguments for not accepting the case, based on the precedents that require an "actual controversy" before the court can decide a case. His opinion only makes sense in a strictly academic context, though. He completely dismisses the realities that real companies have to deal with in the real world. I think the rest of the court is starting to get a little better educated about the real-world problems with patents, but Thomas still acts like a clueless tool. Check this out from the dissenting opinion:
The majority explains that the "coercive nature of the exaction preserves the right . . . to challenge the legality of the claim." Ante, at 12 (internal quotation marks omitted). The coercive nature of what "exaction"? The answer has to be the voluntarily made license payments because there was no threat of suit here. By holding that contractual obligations are sufficiently coercive to allow a party to bring a declaratory judgment action, the majority has given every patent licensee a cause of action and a free pass around Article III's requirements for challenging the validity of licensed patents....
So his idea is that licensing a patent is *unnecessary* if you think there is any chance you can challenge it successfully in court. Don't worry about your revenues if some clueless judge issues an injunction against selling your product, and don't be concerned about the price of your stock when the patent holder announces the lawsuit. There's no coercion at all that would require you to enter into a *voluntary* patent license!
Yea, I think the *rest* of the court made the right decision on this one. Now everybody can go ahead and use that free pass.
The one catch: As a patent holder I'm not required by law to license to you. I believe I can even revoke (or refuse to renew) your license.
Well, that wouldn't apply in this case - if you revoke the license, you can't argue that the plaintiff has no standing to sue because they signed a license agreement, which the patent holder was doing in this case. Also, if you revoke the license, the licensee now has another cause of action against you, so you now have to defend your patent *and* for break of contract.
Well, crap! What about the laplanders, then? I always thought they were, like, Eskimos with reindeer, or something. Ok, forgive my ignorance.
So it's more like africans disliking being called blacks.
That doesn't seem very useful. Are you referring to Africans as in residents of the continent, or those black Americans (or British, or French, or whatever) that prefer to be called African (or African-American, etc.)? But, wait - you wouldn't arbitrarily refer to all Africans (from the continent) blacks because, well, not all of them are. Argh! I did it. Sorry.
It appears that Disney has dusted off the tactic here.
Actually, it hasn't been dusty since about 1967. After Walt Disney's death, the corporation decided that a vast litigation department would help keep the billions flowing in.
In the 1970's they went around the country shutting down child care centers that had Disney characters on their walls.
Slashdot Mirror
Those of us in at the Tp Research Institute for Environmental Responsibility think making sure that a single square of TP is sufficient for every bathroom visit is nothing to laugh about.
You didn't hear these kind of excuses when the telegraph was the big communications network - it went to every town. And you didn't hear it when rail travel became prevalent - those tracks went everywhere, and if a mountain needed blasting to make way, the mountain got blasted. You can claim the Chinese worked like slaves to lay track - which may be true, but there is no shortage of cheap foreign labor in the US today - and they could be laying fiber (in fact, a lot of them are - just not enough).
The problem, as usual, is the self-serving traitorous bastards running Washington (the White House *and* congress - especially congress). When WW I started up, the US needed planes. Did they let the Wright Brothers push them around because they had some patent? No. They were like "look, guys, we need planes for the war, and you can't make them fast enough, so were throwing out your patent."
What happens now when we need equipment for the war? The multinational corporation making hummers whines "but we've got a contract - we make hummers and that's what we're gonna make." So what happens? We buy hummers that get our soldiers killed instead of the anti-road-bomb armored equipment we really need. (check this out). What's that about? Some greedy frackin senators with their palms greased, that's what!
No more excuses. Build the infrastructure we need, make the equipment we need, and quick dicking around with the greedy corporations.
Genes have no concept of morality, the only thing they do is to control the fitness of the individual.
Completely wrong. Most genes (of higher life forms) CANNOT get replicated by an individual - only in a collective. That is, you need a mate. Even having "lots of sex" with random others won't help if they all get killed off because you left and weren't there to protect the young.
An individual that manages to get rid of its competitors could very well gain an advantage.
Not if he's the only one left.
Many female spiders kill their male partner after they have mated. Would it not have been much better for their specie if instead she would have let him live so that he could have mated with other females?
No, not at all - but that's a very specialized case, and it only works because that spider can produce thousands of eggs all by herself. And she dies before they are even hatched. Higher beings have a higher sense of morality precisely because their young are fewer and more vulnerable.
That is why claiming that morality is rooted in genetics is very problematical. There is no evolutionary advantage for the individual to be moral. If everyone else steals, it would be a severe biological handicap to have a genetic moral that told you not to steal. Such a gene would certainly be sifted out very quickly.
Bzzzt. You have it all wrong. Please go to the back of the class. You have a point, but it's on top of your head.
If everyone is stealing from everyone else, that's chaos, and the entire society would collapse, and the genome will end. So, yea, that gene is sifted out. But so does a gene that prevents you from ever stealing at all, even when it could save your young from starving. And that's the moral code that's been selected for: look after the society, but don't sacrifice your ability to procreate in the process. Ants will die for their queen, even for trivial reasons. But ants are built that way - only the queen can reproduce.
On the other hand, in a world full of stealers, it would definitely be a great idea to try and convince everyone else not to steal. Then there would be more left for you to steal! I think that is where morality comes from. Humans does not have a hard coded moral, but a hard coded desire to convince others to be moral.
Nice try, but that just doesn't fly. In fact, I think what you are describing sounds more like a mental illness. People are more inclined to steal from people that are least like themselves. So, there are plenty shoplifters around, a lesser number of muggers, and few that will steal from their own kin. And that, it seems, is a predisposition that is built into our genes. We are most protective of those most like ourselves, and, therefore more likely to pass on genes like our own.
It's t how much better you get along with the rest of the tribe, that is, how well you demonstrate empathetic behaviors in certain social situations. At least, that's the apparent thesis of the researchers. And, IMHO, not a bad one.
Didn't you RTFA? Oh, wait...
I just got a nastygram from their attorneys about my glass systems for model trains (microwindows.com). Dammit!
The whole Earth is in danger and I've been trying to tell you and nobody will listen to me and I'm completely SERIAL!!!
Oh, wait, I forgot - it's Slashdot.
I'll forgive your ignorance, but it's even more disconcerting that the mods apparently just as ignorant.
Here's a clue - this is a *good* thing. If you think you can get an angry mod together to protest that broadcasters should be able to claim copyright on public domain works, then, please, go right ahead. Frankly, I would prefer that more limits were imposed on the rights of copyright owners and broadcasters, not more.
None of the CD burning tools you mentioned will create gapless audio CDs, nor will anything else that will run on Vista for less than $100, other than Nero. Well, Roxio probably has something, but I won't even consider giving them any money, considering their behavior in the past.
WMP told me "Cannot perform the requested action" when I tried to play a DVD. Did it work for you out-of-the-box? No go for me. I have a DVD player that came with my ATI card for XP, but it refuses to install under Vista.
You must have added a lot of software too, then. Mind letting us know what you used that works? I wasn't able to do any video editing at all, since Video Studio refused to run, and the "patch" that was supposed to make it work in Vista removed a bunch of features that I use.
WMP told me I didn't have what I needed to play my DVDs, either.
And my burning software - only about a year old - won't work on Vista. Although I can upgrade to Nero 7 (for $69), and they say it's compatible. The interface looks horrible, though.
I, for one, welcome our high-density, nonvolatile, terahertz memory nano-tubular overlords!
Bzzzt. Wrong. I may be pretty cynical, but there are certainly bigger cynics than me, and even *I* can see that the B&MG Foundation is *still* doing more harm to world society than they are doing good. Here is a little informative reading for you.
Since the original article is registration-only, I will give you the gist of that one. B&MG Foundation funds are invested to the tune of about 85-90%. So the vast majority of funds are simply investments. Those investments are very often in companies that are causing gross harm to poor areas and polluting third-world environments. And don't think that the investments don't draw dividends for Microsoft. If B&MG are investing in your school, what kind of software and programming do you think you'll be teaching?
This is akin to driving 35,000 a year in your 5 MPG SUV, then claim you are an environmentalist because you gave $5 to Greenpeace last Christmas.
It also helps you to maintain privacy for your customers - something they will appreciate. "oh, look, this set of files has sensitive information in it. Let's add it to the Rights Management System." Now there is less chance of those customers being victims of identity theft.
Any time you are creating and maintaining documents or files with any kind of sensitive information, being able to specify who can view it makes a lot of sense - especially when that information needs to be disseminated through email or the corporate portal/intranet/extranet, etc.
Now when somebody points this out in a meeting with a few suits around, who is going to stand up and say "Dude, but DRM is bad, man, cause it's just the Man trying to stick it to you." ?? Do you think it's going to make a difference? You might as well recommend getting rid of SSL on the e-commerce site, or resetting all the passwords to "password" so everybody can share files more easily.
Yea, well, it *sounds* good. But coming from Hillary, I wouldn't get too excited until you see some details. When the other shoe drops, you may be hearing things like "well, you see, to maintain these important privacy protections, it's necessary to fundamentally change some things about how you access the internet.... "
That was your interpretation, not, IMHO, what the OP was actually doing. Maybe I should have used the term "fear mongering" instead.
Lots of people live separated from the rights we talk about. And as the article shows, even for those who do enjoy them there is no guarantee for them being permanent. So they cannot be inherent by that definition.
No, they don't live "separated" from them - rather their rights are violated, or usurped. If you take my stuff, you have violated my right to property, but it still exists, and it's still mine. If you don't like my original definition, here's Websters': "involved in the constitution or essential character of something : belonging by nature or habit". Yea, you can chop off my finger, but it's still *my* finger - it's part of my nature.
Unless I'm a lot stronger than than everybody else, I cannot unilaterally create any rights.
WTF? "Creating rights" is something activist judges and liberals are perpetually accused of. It's not something I am talking about here. You don't create rights, they are inherent. But you must *exercise* them, and defend them. If a you are stopped by a cop, and he wants to search your car, you are free to ignore your inherent property rights and say "sure, go ahead". Defending your rights is an active process.
Rights require some kind of consensus. The way rights are created and maintained, is by building that consensus. Even organizations like RIAA and MPAA needs to buy the support of politicians and to some degree the population at large for all the new rights they create for themselves (in the form of DRM and more).
You are talking about something else, here, like laws and rules of commerce and trade that are unrelated to personal rights. I have heard a lot of people talking about how everyone should have a "right to health care". But that is not a "right" because it imposes a burden on someone else.
And I am not letting you deprive me of my right to acknowledge the people who created the rights I enjoy today.
s/created/defended/
there, fixed it for ya.
> I know personal responsibility s not in vogue these days, but it is really something that we > should not abandon so readily. Why are you then so willing to do it, talking about inherent rights, abandoning your responsibility for their creation and maintenance?
Hmmm... well, I'm not. But you seem content to let everyone do the work for you. Say, how about this: a bunch of us got together and arrived a the consensus that you don't really have a right to life. Will you just lay down and die?
Inherent: existing in someone or something as a permanent and inseparable element, quality, or attribute
"written down in your genes". Haha. Rich.
You have to claim and stand up for your rights. You. Not somebody else. I know personal responsibility is not in vogue these days, but it is really something that we should not abandon so readily. Makes it too easy for someone to violate your rights when you are looking to them to protect you.
What? The ability to claim that your rights are somehow "inherent", and not granted by some government body or other person?
I'm scared of too many people thinking they need to look to someone else to figure out what their rights are, because at that point they stop fighting for their rights.
This is the basis of the Constitution - that government authority flows *from* the people, not the other way around. You don't have to believe in "God" to get this idea - your "creator" can be an entity, the aether, fate, or the lucky happenstance of the right quantum sequence at the moment of the Big Bang. The basis of the Constitution is the same: that your rights are not granted, but are inherent in your very existence as a sentient being.
The idea that your rights come from somewhere else is the fundamental flaw in Gonzales' reasoning. If all your rights need to be spelled out, you might as well forget it. But that's *not* the basis of the Constitution. Instead, all your rights are intact, except a few that are *explicitly* granted to the government within the Constitution.
That's why many of the founders did not like they idea of adding the Bill of Rights. They felt that spelling out those rights would lead to a "backward" interpretation of the Constitutions. Which is exactly what we have here.
WTF? If I understand your statement here, you're wondering why a group of people would be opposed to communism would want to live in a "planned" community? Maybe because planned communities offer houses (for sale) that are pleasant to live, and nearby amenities, while The Party generally offered only rat-infested tiny apartments (that you don't even own). I don't really get what this comparison is about. I've never seen a planned community that I wanted to live in, but I would take it over government housing any day. I think Jane Jacobs rejects both of these ideas.
The plans I have seen often look attractive, but on closer examination bear a striking resemblance to malls turned inside out and mixed with housing.
Well, it's an effort to bring people together, or at least provide place where they can, and less incentive to climb in the car whenever they want to go anywhere. If you have some better ideas I'd love to hear them - as great as the demand is for housing right now, we can't just stop building places to live. That would make everything so expensive there would be a lot more people on the street. There are a couple of developments here around central Virginia that have been pretty successful. The common spaces really *are* used. Planned events, concerts, and spontaneous gatherings (when the weather is nice) happen all the time.
Developers who do want to take a risk often run into senseless rules regulating every detail of their communities, such as requirements for streets big enough for fire trucks to turn around in to minimum parking spaces, wide streets, huge setbacks in front of buildings, low densities, and so forth.
This should not really be an impediment. I can see this as an issue for a very small development in a large market, but the kind of developers you are talking about should have no trouble getting some zone rules and other regulations changed when they are proposing a large development. Generally that how these things get changed.
Sprawl has happened because developers were giving people what they want. Having an affordable house with a yard for the kids and decent schools are often not available in urban environments. Urban living in a suburban area is, for many, the best of both worlds. There is demand for it, and developers are trying to meet that demand. If the spaces don't work, they will be rejected, and never built again.
The fact is, from the 1950's on, there has been a lot of development in the US that was done with cars in mind. There was no foresight, because no one saw the eventually consequences of this. Unfortunately, those areas exist and aren't going away any time soon. We just need to keep in mind that new development needs to be done with people in mind, instead of cars.
Right. That's bad. OK. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.
They may be looking at smaller things, but not small enough to consider quantum effects. I wonder if the scientists themselves are calling it that, because if so, it's pretty irresponsible. Or maybe they are just trying to stir up some "buzz" to increase their funding or something. Terrible.
It's worth stating again: the ends DO NOT justify the means.
Can you point out where the "opponents" have proposed sanctioning all scientists that support the global warming predictions? Because I think I missed that one.
So his idea is that licensing a patent is *unnecessary* if you think there is any chance you can challenge it successfully in court. Don't worry about your revenues if some clueless judge issues an injunction against selling your product, and don't be concerned about the price of your stock when the patent holder announces the lawsuit. There's no coercion at all that would require you to enter into a *voluntary* patent license!
Yea, I think the *rest* of the court made the right decision on this one. Now everybody can go ahead and use that free pass.
The one catch: As a patent holder I'm not required by law to license to you. I believe I can even revoke (or refuse to renew) your license.
Well, that wouldn't apply in this case - if you revoke the license, you can't argue that the plaintiff has no standing to sue because they signed a license agreement, which the patent holder was doing in this case. Also, if you revoke the license, the licensee now has another cause of action against you, so you now have to defend your patent *and* for break of contract.
So it's more like africans disliking being called blacks.
That doesn't seem very useful. Are you referring to Africans as in residents of the continent, or those black Americans (or British, or French, or whatever) that prefer to be called African (or African-American, etc.)? But, wait - you wouldn't arbitrarily refer to all Africans (from the continent) blacks because, well, not all of them are. Argh! I did it. Sorry.
OMG that show was *awful*. I can't believe you would mention it. Gives me shivers.
Actually, it hasn't been dusty since about 1967. After Walt Disney's death, the corporation decided that a vast litigation department would help keep the billions flowing in.
In the 1970's they went around the country shutting down child care centers that had Disney characters on their walls.