Yeah, the moral questions are important. But I also wonder about the technical side.
If every packet on the internet is both going to its intended receiver and into a surveilence database, how much will that slow down the internet and/or increase its cost?
You're basing this argument on theory, when there is tons of actual expereince of this system. And it doesn't work like that at all.
If you have a clear and good case, you can easily sue in this system. While in the current US system, you very likely can't sue even if you are 100% right, because you couldn't afford the cost.
Also it results in a 90% (guess/vague memory) lower number of lawsuits.
AFAIK, nobody in these countries are arguing for going to the US system. That tells you something.
So if a law is bad enough that it will be routinely dismissed in the lower courts, it will never get to the SC, and will never get overturned?? Only borderline bad laws get challenged constitutionally?
Sure, this is law, not logic, so it could well be like this. But I hope not.
Yeah, it looks a bit bad out of context. But keep in mind he was writing this as a thanks to all the Mac people all over who went far out of their way to help him with this. Just think of it as a way to say "You guys are the best EVER!!".
I think you'll find the fault in your logic if you try to figure out why we can buy a days supply of food for well under $10, while heroin costs much, much more.
Food is after all even more addictive than heroin!
Then there is the evidence of legal trade in these drugs (for medical purposes), where what costs $100 on the street can cost $1 on the legal side.
That may seem like no big deal, but one effect is that it adds to the many laws that a lot of people break daily.
This adds up to that everyone is a criminal and can be put in jail at will by The Authorities, should they ever feel that need. And that is not a free society.
What so many programmers don't realize is that to have a successful software company, marketing is the most important factor.
For every dollar you spend on engineering, you should spend at least 2 on marketing. I've heard up to 5 mentioned. It depends on the market, of course.
It's funny to think of all the clueless programmers who constantly whine about "stupid" marketing people on Slashdot, while they in fact owe their jobs to them!
Young people, as a group, have much more money than RIAA and it's members. I mean, RIAA gets pretty much all it's money from perhaps 1% of the money spent by those young people.
Now, since RIAA is a concentrated and organized special interest that can get very good return on every dollar spent lobbying, while young people who donate money to the other side simply lose that money, RIAA spends a lot more on lobbying, and have more political influence.
It's the same as how many other small special interest groups control things at the expense of much larger groups. Search for "public choice theory" for an economic theory background.
A lot of people are repeating this slogan, but they never seem to give any arguments for it.
The public clearly didn't create the frequences, nor were they the first to discover or exploit them. I don't think there is any other reason to say that they are property of the public other than that the US Government has declared that it is so. Of course that is enough for many people, but it's hardly a moral argument.
Which brings me to my other point. The frequences are in no way controlled by the pulic. They are controlled by the US federal government. I know they give lip service to it being "public", but the truth is that it's controlled by the FCC, whcih the public has even less influence over than Verizon. You can at least avoid buying Verizon services.
When Buffy's 5 year contract with WB expired, UPN and WB had a bidding war where UPN eventually emerged as winner by paying $2.3M per episode, up from the $1M that WB had been paying.
If you want to call it "winning" that UPN pays much more for the show than they hope to earn from it. Apparently they see it as an investment in the image of the network to have such a prestigious show, that it is worth the money.
I know this surprises a lot of people, but it is a prestigious show in the sense that it is a big favorite with the critics and has a not too big but passionately fanatic fan base.
As others mentioned, payments under $1 are completely unfeasible due to PayPal fees.
One solution is that instead of paying $0.25 each time, you pay $25 1% of the time, at random. This avoids the impossibility of small payments, and costs the customer just as much in the long run.
Sure, you can have a run of bad luck and pay a bit more for a while. If that really bothers you, don't join the scheme. For those who can handle that uncertainty, it is a feasible way to actually implement micropayments. And it's the only one I've heard of.
The place most people miss when washing their hands is [b]in between the fingers[/b]. You can wash that area in less than a second if you just incorporate it into your routine. And it makes the washing [b]much[/b] more effective.
How do you know they have no secret agenda? Are you under the impression that they would tell you about it if they had?? Then it wouldn't be secret, would it? Or did you ask them if they had one, and they said no?
Try to tell a court judge you won't accept his judgment because you didn't vote for him.
Is that an argument for why he shouldn't be considered the enemy? Cuz I wouldn't expect any enemy to care if I elected him either.
Since it is all done in secret, and everyone who knows about it are forbidden to talk, how do you imagine that evidence of such misuse could be uncovered?
The issue is, at a minimum, that there is some kind of oversight from forces outside the FBI. The court order you mention would be a good such thing, but the FBI need nothing of the kind to do this.
Remember that the FBI under J Edgar Hoover practically ruled the US for decades, using information obtained through similar means.
"Right" and "Left" is a crude one dimensional mapping of what does in fact have several dimensions. It doesn't work well for even mainstream ideologies, and falls completely apart for the odder ones.
Personally I define a free market capitalism mainly by the absence of government intervention, so every totalitarian regime is by definition socialistic, in the sense that the state controls the individual.
If your focus is on other aspects, you will of course get different classifications. I think that as long as you make your definitions clear, you can still have a meaningful discussion. But that's very rare.
One of the Nazis main complaints was how the greedy Jewish capitalists were exploiting the poor honest German workers. Jews *were* over represented among German capitalists, and they were obviously not among any "free-wheeling capitalists" who got very rich.
Fact is, Nazi Germay was a planned economy, not in any way a free market. As opposed to Russia, the government didn't outright take over ownership of most factories, but it was made certain that they produced what the party commanded in many other ways. Some of those involved making some of the owners rich. I don't think that was by being in any way "free-wheeling" way, but by being useful for The Party.
That the workers got "fucked" is very typical for leftist totalitarian regimes.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, the moral questions are important. But I also wonder about the technical side.
If every packet on the internet is both going to its intended receiver and into a surveilence database, how much will that slow down the internet and/or increase its cost?
Maybe it's that children would put their senile and easily defrauded parents on the list, and thus remove the easiest prey from the game.
You're basing this argument on theory, when there is tons of actual expereince of this system. And it doesn't work like that at all.
If you have a clear and good case, you can easily sue in this system. While in the current US system, you very likely can't sue even if you are 100% right, because you couldn't afford the cost.
Also it results in a 90% (guess/vague memory) lower number of lawsuits.
AFAIK, nobody in these countries are arguing for going to the US system. That tells you something.
So if a law is bad enough that it will be routinely dismissed in the lower courts, it will never get to the SC, and will never get overturned?? Only borderline bad laws get challenged constitutionally?
Sure, this is law, not logic, so it could well be like this. But I hope not.
Yeah, it looks a bit bad out of context. But keep in mind he was writing this as a thanks to all the Mac people all over who went far out of their way to help him with this. Just think of it as a way to say "You guys are the best EVER!!".
I think you'll find the fault in your logic if you try to figure out why we can buy a days supply of food for well under $10, while heroin costs much, much more.
Food is after all even more addictive than heroin!
Then there is the evidence of legal trade in these drugs (for medical purposes), where what costs $100 on the street can cost $1 on the legal side.
These quotes obviously prove that whenever someone says that something is impossible or useless, they are always wrong.
There are several thousand telemarketing companies. If each calls once a year, and you ask to be on the no call list... you get the point.
Alos, there is usually no way to know which company is calling, so you can't really check compliance anyway.
It would be even easier to detect any 1-800 numbers in the mails, and have your modem call them round robin through the night.
If there is a 1-800 number, always make sure to call it. It's free, you don't have to talk to them, and they pay a few cents for each call.
Pictures of earth has always been a mainstay of art. They were just done a from a closer vantage point and were called "landscape paintings".
Everyone who thinks this is a good idea seem to be people who have never actually used a Tivo and don't really "get" all it does.
Or prove me wrong. Is there anyone reading who uses a Tivo and is interested in switching to this?
That may seem like no big deal, but one effect is that it adds to the many laws that a lot of people break daily.
This adds up to that everyone is a criminal and can be put in jail at will by The Authorities, should they ever feel that need. And that is not a free society.
What so many programmers don't realize is that to have a successful software company, marketing is the most important factor.
For every dollar you spend on engineering, you should spend at least 2 on marketing. I've heard up to 5 mentioned. It depends on the market, of course.
It's funny to think of all the clueless programmers who constantly whine about "stupid" marketing people on Slashdot, while they in fact owe their jobs to them!
Young people, as a group, have much more money than RIAA and it's members. I mean, RIAA gets pretty much all it's money from perhaps 1% of the money spent by those young people.
Now, since RIAA is a concentrated and organized special interest that can get very good return on every dollar spent lobbying, while young people who donate money to the other side simply lose that money, RIAA spends a lot more on lobbying, and have more political influence.
It's the same as how many other small special interest groups control things at the expense of much larger groups. Search for "public choice theory" for an economic theory background.
A lot of people are repeating this slogan, but they never seem to give any arguments for it.
The public clearly didn't create the frequences, nor were they the first to discover or exploit them. I don't think there is any other reason to say that they are property of the public other than that the US Government has declared that it is so. Of course that is enough for many people, but it's hardly a moral argument.
Which brings me to my other point. The frequences are in no way controlled by the pulic. They are controlled by the US federal government. I know they give lip service to it being "public", but the truth is that it's controlled by the FCC, whcih the public has even less influence over than Verizon. You can at least avoid buying Verizon services.
When Buffy's 5 year contract with WB expired, UPN and WB had a bidding war where UPN eventually emerged as winner by paying $2.3M per episode, up from the $1M that WB had been paying.
If you want to call it "winning" that UPN pays much more for the show than they hope to earn from it. Apparently they see it as an investment in the image of the network to have such a prestigious show, that it is worth the money.
I know this surprises a lot of people, but it is a prestigious show in the sense that it is a big favorite with the critics and has a not too big but passionately fanatic fan base.
As others mentioned, payments under $1 are completely unfeasible due to PayPal fees.
One solution is that instead of paying $0.25 each time, you pay $25 1% of the time, at random. This avoids the impossibility of small payments, and costs the customer just as much in the long run.
Sure, you can have a run of bad luck and pay a bit more for a while. If that really bothers you, don't join the scheme. For those who can handle that uncertainty, it is a feasible way to actually implement micropayments. And it's the only one I've heard of.
At least now we'll have a backup for when we lose an email, forget a phone call or any other piece of information.
Lets work for an amendment where you can get access to the data about you if you were to lose it, instead of this rampant naysaying!
Just use the acronym. Acronyms always sound professional.
The place most people miss when washing their hands is [b]in between the fingers[/b]. You can wash that area in less than a second if you just incorporate it into your routine. And it makes the washing [b]much[/b] more effective.
How do you know they have no secret agenda? Are you under the impression that they would tell you about it if they had?? Then it wouldn't be secret, would it? Or did you ask them if they had one, and they said no?
Try to tell a court judge you won't accept his judgment because you didn't vote for him.
Is that an argument for why he shouldn't be considered the enemy? Cuz I wouldn't expect any enemy to care if I elected him either.
Since it is all done in secret, and everyone who knows about it are forbidden to talk, how do you imagine that evidence of such misuse could be uncovered?
The issue is, at a minimum, that there is some kind of oversight from forces outside the FBI. The court order you mention would be a good such thing, but the FBI need nothing of the kind to do this.
Remember that the FBI under J Edgar Hoover practically ruled the US for decades, using information obtained through similar means.
"Right" and "Left" is a crude one dimensional mapping of what does in fact have several dimensions. It doesn't work well for even mainstream ideologies, and falls completely apart for the odder ones.
Personally I define a free market capitalism mainly by the absence of government intervention, so every totalitarian regime is by definition socialistic, in the sense that the state controls the individual.
If your focus is on other aspects, you will of course get different classifications. I think that as long as you make your definitions clear, you can still have a meaningful discussion. But that's very rare.
One of the Nazis main complaints was how the greedy Jewish capitalists were exploiting the poor honest German workers. Jews *were* over represented among German capitalists, and they were obviously not among any "free-wheeling capitalists" who got very rich.
Fact is, Nazi Germay was a planned economy, not in any way a free market. As opposed to Russia, the government didn't outright take over ownership of most factories, but it was made certain that they produced what the party commanded in many other ways. Some of those involved making some of the owners rich. I don't think that was by being in any way "free-wheeling" way, but by being useful for The Party.
That the workers got "fucked" is very typical for leftist totalitarian regimes.