I'm looking for books that don't just tell me an equation or a concept works, but also explain *why*. Would you please list books that have helped you gain a greater understanding of the basic concepts of algebra, chemistry, calculus, physics, and other core areas of science?"
In my last/. journal entry, I list a bunch of math and science related stuff I just bought. In particular, I just bought several "lower level / refresher" type math books, to use for some self-study before tackling calculus (which I will be taking at a college, not teaching myself... although I may try and get a headstart if I have time).
Anyway, if you look over that list, you might find a few things that you would also be interested in.
What do I do? I just slack off at school (though I still manage to be in the top 10% of my class and get all A's/B's) and when I am at home, I get a real education. I have stacks of programming books, electronics theroy books, and enough computers to become familar with various operating systems to have marketable knowledge for later.
I suppose that's about all you can do, then. It's probably enough though. If you're that interested in the field you want to go into, that fact will show through to potential employers in some fashion.
In my own case, I didn't take any computer related classes in H.S. (my rural, backwater town, hill-billy H.S. in NC didn't even HAVE computer classes until my senior year), and was 3 classes shy of finishing an A.S. in computer programming, when I landed my first programming job.
After I'd been there a few months, the manager that hired me said one of the main reasons he wanted me was becuase it was so obvious that I was a motivated self-learner. In particular, he noticed that just about every question he asked me, in terms of "Do you know anything about (insert subject here)?" I answered either by saying "Yes", OR by saying "No, but I have a book on it and I'm studying it in my spare time."
So as far as employability goes, stuff you do on your own, that's not formal or documented CAN help. You may have to be talking to just the right manager (that is, somebody who appreciates the value of a motivated self-learner), but it can help in the real world.
The two URLS you provide are very small when considered aside CPAN. CPAN is no less than 100 time larger in subject area and code than the combined content of the repositories you named.
Right, but those are hardly the only available sources of freely available java code.
I'd guess that the amount of available Java code is within an order of magnitude of the amount of available Perl code, if one knows where to look.
The biggest thing the Java community lacks in that regard, is one centralized location to grab stuff from, akin to CPAN. But who knows, maybe java.net will grow to encompass such a position in the Java world...
Perl development is so much quicker than JSP servlet development partially because there are so many well-written and thoroughly debugged CPAN modules written for Perl
Not to burst your bubble, but there's oodles of "well-written and thoroughly debugged" code available for Java (JSP/Servlet) programmers as well. Check out OpenSymphony, the Jakarta Project, etc.
(and partially because Perl is simply so much quicker for development!-P)
Lets start by giving motivated students the oppritunity to do independent study on their own, or take classes at the local commuinity college instead of high school.
I'm sure this varies from state to state, but some such opportunities already exist. For example, here in North Carolina, at least some (maybe all) of the High Schools have cooperative agreements with the local community colleges, where advanced students can start taking college classes early; and use those credits in place of some ordinarily required H.S. class.
Also in NC, there is something called the "School of Science and Math", which is a special High School for students who have shown exceptional aptitude for math and science. IIIRC, you can apply during your sophomore year, and if accepted, spend your junior and senior years there, taking more advanced courses than you'd receive at a normal H.S.
So the moral of this story is, for anyone who is still in H.S., ASK your guidance counselor (or whatever they call 'em these days) about opportunities of this nature. There may be something right under your nose.
Trust me; I just took an entire course on Freedom of Speech, and we spent some time on libel.;)
I believe what you say is true, but I'm still of the opinion that filing an SEC complaint won't be considered libel. After all, there is *some* tangible evidence that something shady is going on there... so saying to the SEC "Hey, this looks suspicious, I think you ought to check it out," hardly seems libelous to me. Of course, IANAL, but I've never heard of anybody getting slapped with a libel charge for something that they had a legitimate reason to believe, even if it eventually turned out to be false.
Complaints are good, but you want to have a _serious basis_ for them, not just geek conjecture.
Otherwise, you're just going to piss the SEC off, and open yourself up for a lible suit.
There is some interesting evidence that this whole lawsuit is part of an insider trader scam. Look in the discussion from yesterday's SCO story, and you'll find some links to stuff on Nasdaq.com, and SEC filings, showing SCO executives purchasing SCO stock at bargain basement prices right before filing the lawsuit against IBM, and then you see those same executives selling may shares at dramatically inflated prices, in the last few weeks.
If you want to find the links quickly, take a lot at my recent postings, one of them is from yesterday, and it's where I posted exactly what I sent to the SEC.
This is my one feature request: Draggable tabs. There is no way to rearrange the order that the tabs are displayed in - you should be able to drag them left and right in the browser window. Once you open a tab, you are stuck with its position relative to your other tabs.
s it possible for us to unite against a common foe like SCO? I mean in legal ways. I'd love to hear some ideas from some of you folks out there. I know that most of you won't be recommending SCO products anytime soon, and that helps, but I keep wondering if there's not some way for thousands of pissed off people to have a bigger voice (or stick).
File a complaint with the SEC, stating that you suspect top SCO executives of participating in an insider trading scam, of which this lawsuit is a part.
Search for "SEC" or "complaint" in this discussion to find more details, including a link to the SEC's online complaint registration form.
Ok, I did my part and filed a complaint with the SEC, concerning the allegations that this whole lawsuit was just a scheme to artificially inflate the price of SCOX stock, so the big shareholders could bail out and profit.
Here's what I sent the SEC:
Names, Address, Telephone #s and Other Biographical Information about Individuals Involved
Darl McBride, CEO, other executives
How you Learned about the Transaction or other Activity
Published media report, SEC filings, Internet postings on Slashdot.org
Details About the Transaction(S)
It appears that top executives at SCOX gave (and exercised) generous stock options at an artificially low price, to themselves, immediately before filing a lawsuit against IBM; regarding alleged IP violations relating to the Linux operating system. Since that time, SCOX stock has increased in value dramatically. Based on the volume of insider trades that have taken place since the suit was file, it appears that this suit was filed only to inflate the value of the SCOX stock, so they could "cash out" and pocket millions. There is also a strong possibility that these same executives know the suit is without merit, as they knowingly distributed the disputed code under the terms of the GPL license, which Linux is provided under. It also appears that if any IP made it's way from SCOX's code into Linux' code, it was done by an employee of SCOX (when they were previously known as Caldera ).
If on the Internet, All Relevant Internet Addresses
www.caldera.com, www.sco.com
Any Additional Information Use this area to add any additional information that you wish.
I mean come on, most of these guys got options when the stock was at $.66 just before all of this craziness started. Then they crank up the stock price (fueled by nothing more than baseless accusations in the form of press releases) to $10-$12/share, exercise and dump. Where the heck is the SEC on this!!!
Fine, so let's all get together and contact the SEC and request they look into this. If they get enough e-mails and phone calls, they might just take it seriously... at worst, it gives SCO executives a few sleepless nights, and all of us, a good laugh. At best, SCO realizes the gig is up, and backs down.
Dan Severn first made his name as an amateur wrestler, went on to become a fairly well known name in the world of "No Holds Barred" (read: UFC ) fighting. Jumped into pro (read: Fake) wrestling for a while, and last I heard was still fighting intermittently, and training other fighters.
Here is the Complete Bio for anybody who's interested.
Very rarely should we seek government intervention. Standard Oil, Ma' Bell, Microsoft -- these are issues for the feds.
The nice thing is, this is a state government taking action. Whether it's a "real good move" or not is slightly debatable, but it is good to see a state government doing what it should... responding to the needs / wants of it's constituents.
The whole idea of limiting the power of the federal government is based on the idea that most decision making should happen at a level that's closer to the people it affects - ie, state and local government.
. I also like the dynamic library support (another thing that is automatic in Java)...the worst thing is having to code native OS-specific macros, extern "C" DECLSPEC(dllexport) BLAH BLAH F'ING BLAH. Dynamic libraries are a ubiquitous concept and support should be built in. Leave it to the compiler to figure out what that actually *means* for a given OS. There is no performance benefit in making a human code this.
You are dead on, my friend. Truly portable dynamic class-loading would be a HUGE boon to C++.
I've been a major C++ bigot for at least the last 10 years, but have recently been doing a lot of Java... and after spending all that time doing Java, I've found that there are a few things about it that I actually do like better, and that I wish C++ would adopt...
1. a standardized system for loading classes at run-time.
2. reflection
3. A huge and largely very useful standard library.
and I like exception handling just a little better in Java, mainly because there is no catch(... ) and all exceptions derive from one class, ultimately... I like this, because it avoids the problem of catching an exception and then not having an exception object to get more information from. Having the exception object and it's printStackTrace() function in Java is, IMHO, a huge boon for debugging.
Except that, since they've now built their own power base, voting them out of office is going to be a LOT harder than you think. You'll need popular support for that, and getting enough popular support requires either their cooperation or the commission of "questionable" activities.
Heh. I never said it would be easy. If anything, I'm convinced that it won't be easy.. because, as you said, you need popular support. And, to re-iteratate my point - most American's just don't care.
Which is why I do what little bit I can to spread the word about these issues, and try to raise the awareness level, among my friends and associates, and the people I interact with.
Hopefully everybody else who cares is doing likewise. Maybe all together, we can make a difference.
How about finding ways to better secure our national infrastructure instead of "persecuting" researchers. What's next? The Bush administration will outlawing thinking?
Welcome to 1984, my friend. I've been saying it and saying it until I'm blue in the face... the only thing Orwell was wrong about was the year... the world (well, the USA at least) *is* evolving towards something like what he described...
The sad thing is, there's still time to do something about it... but the problem is, most Americans are lazy, apathetic and "Fat, dumb and happy." As long as the economy doesn't go *completely* to shit (I mean, like, the Great Depression), and there's food on the table, and the telephone and cable TV work, most Americans seem to not give a fuck, about what's going on here.
It's time for us as American citizens to top standing idly by and watching our basic Constitutional rights get eroded away by power-mad, corrupt politicians, in the name of "War on Terrorism", "War on Drugs," "War on Communism," or whatever the fuck the flavor of the day is.
Let's vote these fucking major party fuckers OUT of office, and end this cycle of politicians who get elected and then do nothing but work to establish their own power base.... demand term limits, increased governmental accountability, the restoration of Constitutional rights that have been raped and pillaged by these fuckers.
No, you have representation. You do not, however, have a vote. You may be represented, but you have no say in what that representation does.
I think that if a person has no ability to participate in the process of choosing their "representatives," it can certainly be said that those chosen do NOT represent them in any meaningful sense.
I think how our government treats minors is terrible. I understand we need to have an age limit for voting, but 18? That is far too high. I think 14 is about right.
Agreed.
Oh, and we need to abolish age limits for tobacco, alcohol, porn, and anything else that is restricted by age.
Agreed. Age limits like this are completely arbitrary and meaningless. I mean, I don't really think it's a good idea for 12 year olds to be smoking... but I also don't think it's a good idea for 72 year olds, either! But in either case, it's not my place to say who can or can't smoke. With children, I think it's their parents' responsibility to keep them from smoking, pr0n, or whatever they think is right.
The word "privacy" might not be explicity used in the Constitution, but one could make a strong case that the 4th and 10th amendments to the Constitution establish the principle that privacy (at least from the Government itself) is guaranteed by the Constitution.
And even if the Constitution doesn't guarantee a right to privacy, that doesn't mean there isn't one. There are rights that are even more fundamental than those enumerated by the Constitution... those are the "self-evident truths" and "inalienable" rights spoken of in the Declaration of Independence. It would be easy to argue that the right to privacy is a fundamental right that doesn't need to be spelled out in the Constitution.
Damn, I never thought about it like that before, but your absolutely right. If you're under 18, you can't vote, but yet you still have to fucking pay taxes... Talk about "taxation without representation"...
I can't believe I never thought of that, or even heard anybody else put it that way, before now....
What's the solution though? Drop the voting age down lower, or eliminate taxes for those under the voting age?
It's not so much software patents in general, as the ridiculously absurd software patents, that clearly did not deserve to be granted in the first place, that get people riled up; "One Click" ordering, for instance. Patents are not meant for things that are obvious or trivial. Far, far, too many software patents that are granted, are either one or more of:
trivial
obvious
already implemented, dozens of times over
covered by other existing patents
etc.
That said, I oppose software patents in general, anyway. Software can (and should) be copyrighted, which prevents somebody from stealing your implementation. If somebody else can work out a better (or just alternative) way to do what your software does, they should be allowed to use it, IMHO.
Just because you think your civil liberties involve the right to be drunk on the road, and think it's ok to drive 100mph next to a schoolyard, does NOT mean these sorts of laws are all about a 'cash grab'.
I'd argue with you, but since I never said anything about driving drunk or going 100mph near a school zone, I guess I'll leave the honor to whoever said those things.
Slashdot'ers whine as police officers enforce traffic laws.
And this is a problem why?
Anybody with a lick of common sense realizes that most traffic laws exist to generate a revenue stream for the government and have almost nothing to do with public safety.
Did you realize that posted speed limits aren't needed, because traffic is pretty much self-regulating? Do you HOW the determine what the speed limit for a given stretch of road is? They monitor speeds over that stretch, and set the actual speed limit to the 85th percentile speed.
Now, you've got the cops aiming cameras at red lights, to catch people who run the red light. Talk about a blatant violation of civil liberties. The government doesn't have any right to watch me at every intersection I travel though, just because I happen to be driving a car. "driving a car" is hardly "probably cause" for anything. Likewise, those "Operation Eagle" checkpoints they do in NC to catch drunk drivers, are so fucking unconstitutional it makes me want to vomit.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm looking for books that don't just tell me an equation or a concept works, but also explain *why*. Would you please list books that have helped you gain a greater understanding of the basic concepts of algebra, chemistry, calculus, physics, and other core areas of science?"
/. journal entry, I list a bunch of math and science related stuff I just bought. In particular, I just bought several "lower level / refresher" type math books, to use for some self-study before tackling calculus (which I will be taking at a college, not teaching myself... although I may try and get a headstart if I have time).
In my last
Anyway, if you look over that list, you might find a few things that you would also be interested in.
What do I do? I just slack off at school (though I still manage to be in the top 10% of my class and get all A's/B's) and when I am at home, I get a real education. I have stacks of programming books, electronics theroy books, and enough computers to become familar with various operating systems to have marketable knowledge for later.
I suppose that's about all you can do, then. It's probably enough though. If you're that interested in the field you want to go into, that fact will show through to potential employers in some fashion.
In my own case, I didn't take any computer related classes in H.S. (my rural, backwater town, hill-billy H.S. in NC didn't even HAVE computer classes until my senior year), and was 3 classes shy of finishing an A.S. in computer programming, when I landed my first programming job.
After I'd been there a few months, the manager that hired me said one of the main reasons he wanted me was becuase it was so obvious that I was a motivated self-learner. In particular, he noticed that just about every question he asked me, in terms of "Do you know anything about (insert subject here)?" I answered either by saying "Yes", OR by saying "No, but I have a book on it and I'm studying it in my spare time."
So as far as employability goes, stuff you do on your own, that's not formal or documented CAN help. You may have to be talking to just the right manager (that is, somebody who appreciates the value of a motivated self-learner), but it can help in the real world.
The two URLS you provide are very small when considered aside CPAN. CPAN is no less than 100 time larger in subject area and code than the combined content of the repositories you named.
Right, but those are hardly the only available sources of freely available java code.
I'd guess that the amount of available Java code is within an order of magnitude of the amount of available Perl code, if one knows where to look.
The biggest thing the Java community lacks in that regard, is one centralized location to grab stuff from, akin to CPAN. But who knows, maybe java.net will grow to encompass such a position in the Java world...
Perl development is so much quicker than JSP servlet development partially because there are so many well-written and thoroughly debugged CPAN modules written for Perl
:-)
Not to burst your bubble, but there's oodles of "well-written and thoroughly debugged" code available for Java (JSP/Servlet) programmers as well. Check out OpenSymphony, the Jakarta Project, etc.
(and partially because Perl is simply so much quicker for development!-P)
I'd say that's a debatable point.
5) It has enterprise class RDBMS support (mysql == toy)
You can already run Oracle and DB/2 on Linux. How much more "enterprise class" can you get than the two leading Enteprise RDBMS's in existence?
the world doesn't need an entirely new language. (we already have python).
Python??? Puuuuhhh-leaze....
The world doesn't need another entirely new language, because we already have C++.
Lets start by giving motivated students the oppritunity to do independent study on their own, or take classes at the local commuinity college instead of high school.
I'm sure this varies from state to state, but some such opportunities already exist. For example, here in North Carolina, at least some (maybe all) of the High Schools have cooperative agreements with the local community colleges, where advanced students can start taking college classes early; and use those credits in place of some ordinarily required H.S. class.
Also in NC, there is something called the "School of Science and Math", which is a special High School for students who have shown exceptional aptitude for math and science. IIIRC, you can apply during your sophomore year, and if accepted, spend your junior and senior years there, taking more advanced courses than you'd receive at a normal H.S.
So the moral of this story is, for anyone who is still in H.S., ASK your guidance counselor (or whatever they call 'em these days) about opportunities of this nature. There may be something right under your nose.
Trust me; I just took an entire course on Freedom of Speech, and we spent some time on libel.
I believe what you say is true, but I'm still of the opinion that filing an SEC complaint won't be considered libel. After all, there is *some* tangible evidence that something shady is going on there... so saying to the SEC "Hey, this looks suspicious, I think you ought to check it out," hardly seems libelous to me. Of course, IANAL, but I've never heard of anybody getting slapped with a libel charge for something that they had a legitimate reason to believe, even if it eventually turned out to be false.
Complaints are good, but you want to have a _serious basis_ for them, not just geek conjecture.
Otherwise, you're just going to piss the SEC off, and open yourself up for a lible suit.
There is some interesting evidence that this whole lawsuit is part of an insider trader scam. Look in the discussion from yesterday's SCO story, and you'll find some links to stuff on Nasdaq.com, and SEC filings, showing SCO executives purchasing SCO stock at bargain basement prices right before filing the lawsuit against IBM, and then you see those same executives selling may shares at dramatically inflated prices, in the last few weeks.
If you want to find the links quickly, take a lot at my recent postings, one of them is from yesterday, and it's where I posted exactly what I sent to the SEC.
This is my one feature request: Draggable tabs. There is no way to rearrange the order that the tabs are displayed in - you should be able to drag them left and right in the browser window. Once you open a tab, you are stuck with its position relative to your other tabs.
Install Multizilla
s it possible for us to unite against a common foe like SCO? I mean in legal ways. I'd love to hear some ideas from some of you folks out there. I know that most of you won't be recommending SCO products anytime soon, and that helps, but I keep wondering if there's not some way for thousands of pissed off people to have a bigger voice (or stick).
File a complaint with the SEC, stating that you suspect top SCO executives of participating in an insider trading scam, of which this lawsuit is a part.
Search for "SEC" or "complaint" in this discussion to find more details, including a link to the SEC's online complaint registration form.
Ok, I did my part and filed a complaint with the SEC, concerning the allegations that this whole lawsuit was just a scheme to artificially inflate the price of SCOX stock, so the big shareholders could bail out and profit.
0 00 104746903023599/a2114384zs-3.htm
C OX %20&selected=SCOX
0 20 4&mode=thread&tid=106&tid=185
/ 05 28203&mode=thread&tid=106&tid=185
6 24 0&mode=thread&tid=130&tid=185&tid=187&tid=190&tid= 88
5 26 NWBZLL
Here's what I sent the SEC:
Names, Address, Telephone #s and Other Biographical Information
about Individuals Involved
Darl McBride, CEO, other executives
How you Learned about the Transaction or other Activity
Published media report, SEC filings, Internet postings on Slashdot.org
Details About the Transaction(S)
It appears that top executives at SCOX gave (and exercised) generous stock options at an artificially low price, to themselves, immediately before filing a lawsuit against IBM; regarding alleged IP violations relating to the Linux operating system. Since that time, SCOX stock has increased in value dramatically. Based on the volume of insider trades that have taken place since the suit was file, it appears that this suit was filed only to inflate the value of the SCOX stock, so they could "cash out" and pocket millions. There is also a strong possibility that these same executives know the suit is without merit, as they knowingly distributed the disputed code under the terms of the GPL license, which Linux is provided under. It also appears that if any IP made it's way from SCOX's code into Linux' code, it was done by an employee of SCOX (when they were previously known as Caldera ).
If on the Internet, All Relevant Internet Addresses
www.caldera.com, www.sco.com
Any Additional Information
Use this area to add any additional information that you wish.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1102542/
http://www.nasdaq.com/asp/Holdings.asp?symbol=S
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/22/141
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/22
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/21/151
http://linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/2003072201
I mean come on, most of these guys got options when the stock was at $.66 just before all of this craziness started. Then they crank up the stock price (fueled by nothing more than baseless accusations in the form of press releases) to $10-$12/share, exercise and dump. Where the heck is the SEC on this!!!
Fine, so let's all get together and contact the SEC and request they look into this. If they get enough e-mails and phone calls, they might just take it seriously... at worst, it gives SCO executives a few sleepless nights, and all of us, a good laugh. At best, SCO realizes the gig is up, and backs down.
Dan Severn first made his name as an amateur wrestler, went on to become a fairly well known name in the world of "No Holds Barred" (read: UFC ) fighting. Jumped into pro (read: Fake) wrestling for a while, and last I heard was still fighting intermittently, and training other fighters.
Here is the Complete Bio for anybody who's interested.
Very rarely should we seek government intervention. Standard Oil, Ma' Bell, Microsoft -- these are issues for the feds.
The nice thing is, this is a state government taking action. Whether it's a "real good move" or not is slightly debatable, but it is good to see a state government doing what it should... responding to the needs / wants of it's constituents.
The whole idea of limiting the power of the federal government is based on the idea that most decision making should happen at a level that's closer to the people it affects - ie, state and local government.
. I also like the dynamic library support (another thing that is automatic in Java)...the worst thing is having to code native OS-specific macros, extern "C" DECLSPEC(dllexport) BLAH BLAH F'ING BLAH. Dynamic libraries are a ubiquitous concept and support should be built in. Leave it to the compiler to figure out what that actually *means* for a given OS. There is no performance benefit in making a human code this.
... ) and all exceptions derive from one class, ultimately... I like this, because it avoids the problem of catching an exception and then not having an exception object to get more information from. Having the exception object and it's printStackTrace() function in Java is, IMHO, a huge boon for debugging.
You are dead on, my friend. Truly portable dynamic class-loading would be a HUGE boon to C++.
I've been a major C++ bigot for at least the last 10 years, but have recently been doing a lot of Java... and after spending all that time doing Java, I've found that there are a few things about it that I actually do like better, and that I wish C++ would adopt...
1. a standardized system for loading classes at run-time.
2. reflection
3. A huge and largely very useful standard library.
and I like exception handling just a little better in Java, mainly because there is no catch(
I'd check the link myself, but it seems to crash Mozilla. Go fig.
I was able to check the link using Mozilla, with no problem, FWIW.
Except that, since they've now built their own power base, voting them out of office is going to be a LOT harder than you think. You'll need popular support for that, and getting enough popular support requires either their cooperation or the commission of "questionable" activities.
Heh. I never said it would be easy. If anything, I'm convinced that it won't be easy.. because, as you said, you need popular support. And, to re-iteratate my point - most American's just don't care.
Which is why I do what little bit I can to spread the word about these issues, and try to raise the awareness level, among my friends and associates, and the people I interact with.
Hopefully everybody else who cares is doing likewise. Maybe all together, we can make a difference.
How about finding ways to better secure our national infrastructure instead of "persecuting" researchers. What's next? The Bush administration will outlawing thinking?
Welcome to 1984, my friend. I've been saying it and saying it until I'm blue in the face... the only thing Orwell was wrong about was the year... the world (well, the USA at least) *is* evolving towards something like what he described...
The sad thing is, there's still time to do something about it... but the problem is, most Americans are lazy, apathetic and "Fat, dumb and happy." As long as the economy doesn't go *completely* to shit (I mean, like, the Great Depression), and there's food on the table, and the telephone and cable TV work, most Americans seem to not give a fuck, about what's going on here.
It's time for us as American citizens to top standing idly by and watching our basic Constitutional rights get eroded away by power-mad, corrupt politicians, in the name of "War on Terrorism", "War on Drugs," "War on Communism," or whatever the fuck the flavor of the day is.
Let's vote these fucking major party fuckers OUT of office, and end this cycle of politicians who get elected and then do nothing but work to establish their own power base.... demand term limits, increased governmental accountability, the restoration of Constitutional rights that have been raped and pillaged by these fuckers.
No, you have representation. You do not, however, have a vote. You may be represented, but you have no say in what that representation does.
I think that if a person has no ability to participate in the process of choosing their "representatives," it can certainly be said that those chosen do NOT represent them in any meaningful sense.
I think how our government treats minors is terrible. I understand we need to have an age limit for voting, but 18? That is far too high. I think 14 is about right.
Agreed.
Oh, and we need to abolish age limits for tobacco, alcohol, porn, and anything else that is restricted by age.
Agreed. Age limits like this are completely arbitrary and meaningless. I mean, I don't really think it's a good idea for 12 year olds to be smoking... but I also don't think it's a good idea for 72 year olds, either! But in either case, it's not my place to say who can or can't smoke. With children, I think it's their parents' responsibility to keep them from smoking, pr0n, or whatever they think is right.
There are no constitutional rights to privacy.
The word "privacy" might not be explicity used in the Constitution, but one could make a strong case that the 4th and 10th amendments to the Constitution establish the principle that privacy (at least from the Government itself) is guaranteed by the Constitution.
And even if the Constitution doesn't guarantee a right to privacy, that doesn't mean there isn't one. There are rights that are even more fundamental than those enumerated by the Constitution... those are the "self-evident truths" and "inalienable" rights spoken of in the Declaration of Independence. It would be easy to argue that the right to privacy is a fundamental right that doesn't need to be spelled out in the Constitution.
if taxation without representation was cheaper.
(As a minor, that's essentially what I have.)
Damn, I never thought about it like that before, but your absolutely right. If you're under 18, you can't vote, but yet you still have to fucking pay taxes... Talk about "taxation without representation"...
I can't believe I never thought of that, or even heard anybody else put it that way, before now....
What's the solution though? Drop the voting age down lower, or eliminate taxes for those under the voting age?
It's not so much software patents in general, as the ridiculously absurd software patents, that clearly did not deserve to be granted in the first place, that get people riled up; "One Click" ordering, for instance. Patents are not meant for things that are obvious or trivial. Far, far, too many software patents that are granted, are either one or more of:
trivial
obvious
already implemented, dozens of times over
covered by other existing patents
etc.
That said, I oppose software patents in general, anyway. Software can (and should) be copyrighted, which prevents somebody from stealing your implementation. If somebody else can work out a better (or just alternative) way to do what your software does, they should be allowed to use it, IMHO.
Just because you think your civil liberties involve the right to be drunk on the road, and think it's ok to drive 100mph next to a schoolyard, does NOT mean these sorts of laws are all about a 'cash grab'.
I'd argue with you, but since I never said anything about driving drunk or going 100mph near a school zone, I guess I'll leave the honor to whoever said those things.
Slashdot'ers whine as police officers enforce traffic laws.
And this is a problem why?
Anybody with a lick of common sense realizes that most traffic laws exist to generate a revenue stream for the government and have almost nothing to do with public safety.
Did you realize that posted speed limits aren't needed, because traffic is pretty much self-regulating? Do you HOW the determine what the speed limit for a given stretch of road is? They monitor speeds over that stretch, and set the actual speed limit to the 85th percentile speed.
Now, you've got the cops aiming cameras at red lights, to catch people who run the red light. Talk about a blatant violation of civil liberties. The government doesn't have any right to watch me at every intersection I travel though, just because I happen to be driving a car. "driving a car" is hardly "probably cause" for anything. Likewise, those "Operation Eagle" checkpoints they do in NC to catch drunk drivers, are so fucking unconstitutional it makes me want to vomit.