Um, the problem is that it's representatives voting on the law, and not the people. Democracy by representation is always imperfect, as your 'representative' can never truly represent your views, but on a small scale it can work OK. There does come a point, however, where it becomes utterly useless, and I think that a handful of people claiming to represent the views of *ALL CITIZENS IN EUROPE* is way beyond that point. Perhaps a mayor of a town is a reasonable limit on how far elected representatives should go.
Heh. Why this isn't the worldwide standard by now is beyond me. When my dad told me about this (he's a solicitor), it seemed prefectly logical to me. You sue someone and lose, the logical conclusion is that your case should never have been taken to court, so *of course* you should have to pay the defendent's defence costs. Otherwise you could just take people to court to bankrupt them, right? Unfortunately, this seems to have been overlooked in the US system.
And non-Latin languages that are horrificly difficult for Westerners to learn. Ah, when will the world speak English?:-) Or a universal translator would do.
So, why did this law not get passed and yet a mandatory surcharge on CDs IS levied? One is levied on so-called 'audio CDs' in the US, anyway. Is it just that politicians of today are dumber/more easily bribed, or is there some fundamental difference? Yes, CD audio is lossless once the music has been ripped, but is that a significant difference?
The 'original poster' was CmdrTaco. I know you have to make allowances, but this heap of shit is pretty low, even for his standards, to be posted to Slashdot.
Very good points, but rights should be defined as the most fundamental things that a human is guaranteed. In your example, couldn't you break down the internet right simply to 'the right to receive unbiased news', or at least 'news from a variety of different sources'? Admittedly, this would be hard to enforce if the govt shut off internet access but need you specify the internet? What if a new, cooler technology than the internet comes along in the future? It wouldn't be specified in any bill of rights.
A dictatorship or monarchy would have you believe they do have the right to govern the country, because they are the best / born in the right bloodline. This kind of mentality is dangerous, and seems to be being adopted by most PMs/presidents around the world now. 'Elected dictatorship'.
On the other hand, if there is no such written document, there is no room for argument over the interpretation, the only guide is the *spirit*.
This is BS. If there is no written document to specify law, lawyers wouldn't *exist* (you may cheer but wait until you get burgled:-) and the law would simply be forgotten. There must be documents specifying the laws in Australia, although I know not what they are as I'm British. We don't really have any documents that specify/protect our rights over here, and it shows. They're stripped away from us in the blink of an eye, with no real scrutiny.
I don't even know what the hell the iLook is. According to Google it is either a webcam or a forensics package, neither of which seems to be what you are referring to. I don't know if I should be worried or not.
Perhaps part of the requirements for displaying the 'works with Win95/WinXXX' sticker on your hardware is that you don't slap on another sticker for another OS. If you had the choice between the Windows sticker or the Linux one, which would you choose? Linux may be growing but it's still a featherweight in the desktop market.
As a matter of fact, I still play a lot of DOS games:-) So I happen to use a ton of different resolutions. DOS games were very fond of 320x200, so I often use that. In addition, some DOS games and early Windows games were designed for, and look much better in, 640x480 or 800x600. I run 1024x768 on my desktop normally, so I need a monitor that can display all of them 'smoothly', which most LCDs can't do. The latest games might be able to run in several resolutions, but they were designed for a particular one (the one the developers preferred) so it's best to be able to switch between em a lot if you play lots of games.
Oh god no. If there's one thing worse than laptop keyboard, it's 'natural' keyboards. About as natural as having a large spike shoved up your ass. I think i'll stick with my nice standard keyboard. My complaint about laptop keyboards is that the keys are too big (except for the numbers, they always seem to be too small), and there's not enough travel in the keys. They need to be made deeper.
I can think of several reasons why I haven't bought a laptop, and probably won't for a long while.
Ergonomics: Laptop keyboards *suck*. Also, bring your own mouse to plugin, because laptop 'touch mice' are a joke too.
Sound: Laptop speakers just ain't gonna reproduce sound as well as seperate speakers. You could plugin headphones, of course, or speakers, but then you might as well just use a desktop PC as they're not easily portable.
Upgrades: What upgrades? You can't upgrade a laptop like you can a PC. Buy a laptop, and live with its specs. When you need a new part, it's time to buy a new laptop, reinstall your OS and/or configure it for use with totally new hardware.
I won't. The day they invent an LCD that can display a large variety of different resolutions well, I'll be impressed. Until then, i'm sticking with my wonderful CRT.
I used to have an Amstrad with a CGA monitor, no idea what the CPU was. But here's the freaky thing: the power button was *on the monitor*! And it was at the back. So to turn on my computer i had to reach round the back of the monitor for the powr switch. And, it used to occasionally give me a nice electric shock/discharge when I touched it.
Isn't the History list kinda similar to this? I use IE's History quite extensively; it tells me what pages I loaded based on name, date visited, etc. Not a tree, no, but they are grouped by domain. And (IMHO) it kicks Mozilla's History's ass, but then just about anything would.
Now that's an idea! So you get 500 spammers calling up a day, asking you to call them back so they can be verified. And because the internet is a global thing, you have to pay $10/minute to call them back! Let's see, $20 per call * 500 = $10,000/day... yeah, great idea. You should patent that method, and see how much you earn!
Slashdot Mirror
Um, the problem is that it's representatives voting on the law, and not the people. Democracy by representation is always imperfect, as your 'representative' can never truly represent your views, but on a small scale it can work OK. There does come a point, however, where it becomes utterly useless, and I think that a handful of people claiming to represent the views of *ALL CITIZENS IN EUROPE* is way beyond that point. Perhaps a mayor of a town is a reasonable limit on how far elected representatives should go.
Heh. Why this isn't the worldwide standard by now is beyond me. When my dad told me about this (he's a solicitor), it seemed prefectly logical to me. You sue someone and lose, the logical conclusion is that your case should never have been taken to court, so *of course* you should have to pay the defendent's defence costs. Otherwise you could just take people to court to bankrupt them, right? Unfortunately, this seems to have been overlooked in the US system.
And non-Latin languages that are horrificly difficult for Westerners to learn. Ah, when will the world speak English? :-) Or a universal translator would do.
So, why did this law not get passed and yet a mandatory surcharge on CDs IS levied? One is levied on so-called 'audio CDs' in the US, anyway. Is it just that politicians of today are dumber/more easily bribed, or is there some fundamental difference? Yes, CD audio is lossless once the music has been ripped, but is that a significant difference?
You suck.
The 'original poster' was CmdrTaco. I know you have to make allowances, but this heap of shit is pretty low, even for his standards, to be posted to Slashdot.
Haha. An amendable constitution. What an oxymoron.
'It's OK, my constitution PROTECTS this! Now let me just go ahead and amend it...'
Very good points, but rights should be defined as the most fundamental things that a human is guaranteed. In your example, couldn't you break down the internet right simply to 'the right to receive unbiased news', or at least 'news from a variety of different sources'? Admittedly, this would be hard to enforce if the govt shut off internet access but need you specify the internet? What if a new, cooler technology than the internet comes along in the future? It wouldn't be specified in any bill of rights.
Well, actually...
A dictatorship or monarchy would have you believe they do have the right to govern the country, because they are the best / born in the right bloodline. This kind of mentality is dangerous, and seems to be being adopted by most PMs/presidents around the world now. 'Elected dictatorship'.
On the other hand, if there is no such written document, there is no room for argument over the interpretation, the only guide is the *spirit*.
:-) and the law would simply be forgotten. There must be documents specifying the laws in Australia, although I know not what they are as I'm British. We don't really have any documents that specify/protect our rights over here, and it shows. They're stripped away from us in the blink of an eye, with no real scrutiny.
This is BS. If there is no written document to specify law, lawyers wouldn't *exist* (you may cheer but wait until you get burgled
I don't even know what the hell the iLook is. According to Google it is either a webcam or a forensics package, neither of which seems to be what you are referring to. I don't know if I should be worried or not.
Actually, it was probably a misspelling of iLoo.
Perhaps part of the requirements for displaying the 'works with Win95/WinXXX' sticker on your hardware is that you don't slap on another sticker for another OS. If you had the choice between the Windows sticker or the Linux one, which would you choose? Linux may be growing but it's still a featherweight in the desktop market.
I personally don't mind what I've had to go through if it's in the name of piracy.
Yeah, that seems to be Microsoft's attitude to. Anything they can do to encourage piracy is a good idea - raises BSA revenues.
As a matter of fact, I still play a lot of DOS games :-) So I happen to use a ton of different resolutions. DOS games were very fond of 320x200, so I often use that. In addition, some DOS games and early Windows games were designed for, and look much better in, 640x480 or 800x600. I run 1024x768 on my desktop normally, so I need a monitor that can display all of them 'smoothly', which most LCDs can't do. The latest games might be able to run in several resolutions, but they were designed for a particular one (the one the developers preferred) so it's best to be able to switch between em a lot if you play lots of games.
Oh god no. If there's one thing worse than laptop keyboard, it's 'natural' keyboards. About as natural as having a large spike shoved up your ass. I think i'll stick with my nice standard keyboard. My complaint about laptop keyboards is that the keys are too big (except for the numbers, they always seem to be too small), and there's not enough travel in the keys. They need to be made deeper.
I can think of several reasons why I haven't bought a laptop, and probably won't for a long while.
Ergonomics: Laptop keyboards *suck*. Also, bring your own mouse to plugin, because laptop 'touch mice' are a joke too.
Sound: Laptop speakers just ain't gonna reproduce sound as well as seperate speakers. You could plugin headphones, of course, or speakers, but then you might as well just use a desktop PC as they're not easily portable.
Upgrades: What upgrades? You can't upgrade a laptop like you can a PC. Buy a laptop, and live with its specs. When you need a new part, it's time to buy a new laptop, reinstall your OS and/or configure it for use with totally new hardware.
I won't. The day they invent an LCD that can display a large variety of different resolutions well, I'll be impressed. Until then, i'm sticking with my wonderful CRT.
Don't you mean i = rand * 4 ? You code == rand MOD 5, which should always return 5. I think.
I think I implied that in my post.
Possibly you did not read the parent post. There was nothing about calling people back in it.
Or maybe YOU didn't. Read:
It wouldn't even need to be live; any employee could give the blind person a call back whenever they have time.
I used to have an Amstrad with a CGA monitor, no idea what the CPU was. But here's the freaky thing: the power button was *on the monitor*! And it was at the back. So to turn on my computer i had to reach round the back of the monitor for the powr switch. And, it used to occasionally give me a nice electric shock/discharge when I touched it.
Isn't the History list kinda similar to this? I use IE's History quite extensively; it tells me what pages I loaded based on name, date visited, etc. Not a tree, no, but they are grouped by domain. And (IMHO) it kicks Mozilla's History's ass, but then just about anything would.
What country started World War II?
- Germany
- Italy
- France
- Poland
- England
- Russia
- America
Now that's an idea! So you get 500 spammers calling up a day, asking you to call them back so they can be verified. And because the internet is a global thing, you have to pay $10/minute to call them back! Let's see, $20 per call * 500 = $10,000/day... yeah, great idea. You should patent that method, and see how much you earn!
Sorry?? As a Microsoft employee/Darl McBride/a FOX News presenter/a CNN presenter, i'm *highly* offended.