The poor and starving will afford the vitamin-enhanced GM rice because the Swiss professor who developed it negotiated a deal that will let them use it at no licensing cost, while farmers in the industrialized world pay the usual (higher) prices.
Of course, all GM food is the spawn of the devil. Poor peasants in Asia should thank their enlightened protectors in the West, who ensure that their children will continue to sicken, go blind, and die from vitamin deficiency.
Well, I don't really think that federal highway support can be considered a "subsidy", since it comes from gasoline taxes. It's more of a "user fee" scheme.
Federal rail support is a subsidy, since it comes from general revenue, including some of those gasoline taxes! In any case, the federal gravy train is slated to continue indefinitely. Amtrak is only required to become "operationally" self-sufficient in 2003. Uncle Sam will still be kicking in big, big, bucks to buy new capital equipment and facilities.
That's true, but those laws don't have an icecube's chance in hell of withstanding a constitutional challenge.
It is utterly clear that the electoral college is intended to be a deliberative body, and state laws compelling electors to vote a certain way are in conflict with that, and are therefore null and void.
Do you think that a state law could compel U.S. senators or representatives to vote a certain way? If not, why are electors less privileged?
Even if it was social engineering, that does not mean that it is 'just an education issue'.
When a jetliner crashes due to pilot error, the airlines and the regulators don't throw up their hands and say 'it's just an education issue for pilots'. They intensively study the systems design that allowed the error to happen, and allowed the error to have catastrophic consqeuences.
'Human factors' engineering is a big deal in aerospace. It needs to be a big deal in security as well. Saying 'just educate your employees' doesn't cut it. People are fallible, and systems must be designed with that in mind.
Instant-runoff (preferential) voting for presidential elections is indeed the right answer, as The Man says.
The exciting thing about it is that it could actually happen. For all its faults, the Electoral College has a virtue in this regard: it is a truly federal institution. Each state decides how its electors will be chosen, and can therefore be a 'laboratory' for experimenting with new electoral systems. If a few states adopt the instant runoff, they could be a model for the rest on the nation.
Of course, this will work best in states that have the popular initiative system, allowing the people to bypass the fierce opposition of the Dempublicans who control the state government.
People are capable of deciding the smallest issue. They are not capable of deciding ten of them, day after day after day.
They certainly are so capable, but they (and you, and I) just don't want to take the time required to properly decide every little issue. I, however, might like the right to decide the big issues for myself.
>Switzerland has effectively had a direct democracy for some time now, and shows no sign of disappearing.
I'm curious if you have some links to information about this.
Try this link. In addition to referendums (or direct open-air democracy) at the cantonal level, the Swiss federal constitution has referendum and initiative provisions liberal enough to ensure that any contentious issue will be brought before the voters directly.
>Let the 'representative' become a 'proxy' instead.
Representatives would become even less responsive than they are now, since dissatisfied people are more likely to just vote directly than they are to try to unseat him...
Why? Even the direct voters will want a good representative for 95% (or 99.9%) of the issues that come up.
But the beauty of this scheme is that you don't have to choose 'your' representative by majority vote of your neigbors! Under the present system, if 51% of the people in your district disagree with you, you are powerless and unrepresented until the next election. Under a proxy scheme, you could designate any representative to carry your vote, and choose someone _you_ respect and trust.
...people who went for the representative will be unhappy because many of the direct types are making decisions with even less information than usual...
What a joke! As if our esteemed representatives really care about the reality of the issues, as opposed to the political spin that can be put on them!
In any case, even if we didn't go as far as a proxy-based legislature, a referendum and initiative system on the Swiss model would go far to eliminate the abuse and arrogance of power we see in Washington every day.
The majority is rarely right, and when it is it's usually by accident.
I see. The people are to be trusted with choosing representatives, but are utterly incompentent to decide even the smallest issue. I'm sorry, but I give the public more credit than that. People already decide issues indirectly (through choosing representatives who espouse their views), and the sky won't fall if we eliminate the middleman.
If a direct democracy is ever implemented, it will be the end for this country, or whichever country it is that does it.
Bzzt! Sorry, but thanks for playing. Switzerland has effectively had a direct democracy for some time now, and shows no sign of disappearing.
There are more reasons than the technical ones as to why we have a representative, instead of a direct, democracy.
Then why not a scheme where the voter can choose either one? Let the 'representative' become a 'proxy' instead. If the voter is not interested in a particular subject, his representative votes for him. If the voter is interested enough to vote directly on an issue, his vote is counted and his representative's voting power is reduced by an equivalent amount.
With a system like this, everyone is satisfied. The 'dumb' voters you detest won't bother to vote on each issue (and won't want to), while those who want to exercise their rights directly can do so.
Well, that depends on what state you live in. I live in Massachusetts, and that means that my vote will have no effect on the Presidential election, since it is an utter certainty that Gore will win my state. (In some other states, like Indiana, the result is just as certain the other way.)
Given that, I view my vote as a public-relations exercise, rather than something carrying direct political power. I am leaning toward Browne, but I have to admit that this discussion has made me interested in investigating Nader's positions.
Of course, Nader has some pretty nutty positions, but my real question is whether he or Browne is in a better position to pressure the major parties to pay more attention to individual rights. In the U.S. political system, that sort of pressure is the true power of third parties.
Suppose that FBI wishes, with appropriate authority, to intercept the e-mail of a particular person. Suppose further that the person's ISP volunteers to monitor such e-mail and send the results to the FBI, using an open-source program that will demonstrably satisfy the FBI's legitimate needs.
In that case, why should a court compel the installation of a secret, closed-source FBI Carnivore 'black-box' at the ISP?
This is yet another version of what has been called the 'lump of labor' argument. It assumes that there is a fixed and immutable amount of employment and wages available, and therefore any dollar of wages paid to an immigrant is 'stolen' from a native-born worker.
What this ignores is the effects of immigration on stimulating the economy as a whole, both through new ideas and through avoidance of the upcoming demographic crunch. (This is an immutable number: the USA simply will not have enough working-age people in the coming decades unless we let more workers in.) I imagine some people considered my great-grandfather to be 'cheap labor', but both he and the country benefitted from his immigration.
I certainly do not advocate letting 'everyone in the world to immigrate to the US', but I also don't advocate the current scheme that has everything to do with family and national origin, and almost nothing to do with economics.
You can call the Social Security crisis 'FUD' if you like. I'm certainly not counting on SS, but I pity those who will have to, since people like the Game Guy will block the most effective reform.
My grandparents and great-grandparents came to the USA as immigrants, and they and their descendents (including me) have benefitted greatly from it. But the USA has benefitted greatly as well, from us and other immigrants.
But modern US immigation law makes it so difficult to immigrate that a large proportion of immigrants are now 'illegals': those with so little to lose that they will flout the law. The xenophobes then hold up these illegals as typical of all potential immigrants, and demand ever stricter limits, or even a complete ban on immigration (check out Pat Buchanan's rant).
If young, well-educated, productive, English-speaking professionals want to come to the USA in order to work and pay taxes, why do we look a gift horse in the mouth?
BTW, there is a looming 'Social Security crisis' in the USA, since there will be more retirees and fewer workers in the coming decades. Conventional wisdom says that the 'only solution' to the crisis is either to raise taxes and/or cut benefits. But conventional wisdom is wrong. If we allow young, educated, hard-working, motivated, English-speaking people to come to the USA to work and pay taxes, the 'crisis' will disappear!
So, when the politicians end up raising your taxes now and cutting Social Security by the time you retire, you can place the blame squarely where it belongs: on the xenophobes who perpetuate the current US immigration policy.
I know Abit's behavior seems clueless at best, and arrogant at worst, but really, we (the open-source community) have no direct claim on Abit. We may not like it if they violate the GPL, and_polite_ protests may get the desired efffect, but the fundamental rights that are being violated are those of the author(s): redseb and perhaps Ben Jarvis, from whom he has "'emprunté' une grande partie du code" ('borrowed' a large part of the code).
When someone violates the GPL, as Abit is alleged to have done, what they are doing is distributing copyrighted software without a license (the GPL does not apply, since they are not complying with its terms). The appropriate response is for one or more of the authors to contact the offender and discuss licensing terms.
The author(s) may insist that the GPL be complied with, but they are fully within their rights to grant special terms to their own code, if they think it justified. Of course, all the authors would have to agree to new terms. [This may be possible in this case, since there is only one author (or a small number of them), but would be essentially impossible for something like the Linux kernel.]
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group
on
UNIX.com On eBay?
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· Score: 2
I'm afraid that given current US cybersquatting law, and the fact that the Open Group now has title to the UNIX* trademark, anyone bidding on 'unix.com' had better be clear about their rights to use it before bidding.
Moving to a US host is a poor second-best option. Even for anonymous authors it is an imperfect protection, and for people who wish to publish openly under their own names it offers no protection from liability.
It is quite true that the net will "interpret censorship as damage, and route around it", but that is cold comfort to Britons who discover that they are now 'damaged' and are being routed around.
"Nevertheless, both prudence and the deference this Court owes to pronouncements of its own Circuit oblige that it follow in the direction it is pointed until the trail falters."
The Judge then goes on to base his argument largely on Supreme Court precedents, leading me to suspect that Judge Jackson is anticipating a direct Supreme Court appeal under the Expediting Act. The ultimate disposition of case may well turn on whether the Supreme Court accepts the direct appeal.
I'm afraid you are missing the point. Suppose I don't like your posting, and send a message to your ISP claiming that it is defamatory libel and demanding that it be removed. The ISP has a Hobson's choice:
1. dedicate enough skilled staff to review each and every such demand, and judge whether it is justified (keeping in mind that a wrong decision could be very costly), or
2. immediately cave in and remove any posting on demand (this will also require staff effort, but requires less skill). This would, of course, reduce the level of discourse to that of a corporate press release.
What with this and Labour's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill (putting encryption users at risk of prosecution if they lose their keys), Britain looks to be dropping out of the Internet race. Sad, really.
Reuters article with info on Iridium de-orbiting
on
R.I.P. Iridium
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· Score: 2
Here is a Reuters article with information about the Iridium destruction plans.
All the sats will be de-orbited (and burned up)
on
R.I.P. Iridium
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· Score: 3
In addition to desperately looking for new financing, the Iridium folks will be preparing a "de-orbiting" plan for safe destruction of the Iridium constellation. (If they were just left derelict, they might cause significant problems down the road.)
If there is no last-minute financial rescue by the deadline, the de-orbiting plan will start, although it may take up to six months to complete.
No, it doesn't cover computers at all. The act says "No person shall import, manufacture, or distribute any digital audio recording device or digital audio interface device that does not conform to-- [SCMS]".
The act defines the terms "digital audio recording device" and "digital audio interface device" to only include devices "designed or marketed for the primary purpose of" or "designed specifically" for digital audio recording or interfacing.
General-purpose computers fall under neither category, and are therefore exempt from the SCMS requirement.
Modesty is a virtue, but we are not all completely virtuous. I would consider overuse of 'Dr.' as vanity, not arrogance. Myself, I generally use the title only in professional or formal situations, but if I feel like indulging my vanity on occasion, where's the harm? You can just write me off as another pompous Ph.D.
When I got the degree, they said I was entitled to all the 'rights and privileges attendant thereto'. As far as I can tell, the only such right or privilege is using the title 'Dr.' when you feel like it.
Well, the Webgear Aviator Pro (which I love, adding to the chorus of approval here) has both the SSID and 40-bit encryption. Probably nothing to stop a _really_ dedicated and sophisticated eavesdropper, but enough to foil the teenager cruising around the neighborhood with his laptop.
"Free-trade will somehow cure all problems?" Give me a break! No one maintains that free trade will cure all problems. What people (including me) maintain is that, on balance, free trade results in fewer problems than protectionism does.
If you choose to ignore or disbelieve the overwhelming empirical evidence in favor of free trade over protectionism, I suppose this might seem a 'religious' or 'magical' belief to you. If so, have a nice life.
As for the US not practicing free trade: of course not! Neither does it provide justice to its citizens, nor does it preserve their liberties. But it does (most of the time) strive to approach those goals. The closer we (or China) get to all those goals, the better off we'll be. (Not perfect, just better.)
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The poor and starving will afford the vitamin-enhanced GM rice because the Swiss professor who developed it negotiated a deal that will let them use it at no licensing cost, while farmers in the industrialized world pay the usual (higher) prices.
Of course, all GM food is the spawn of the devil. Poor peasants in Asia should thank their enlightened protectors in the West, who ensure that their children will continue to sicken, go blind, and die from vitamin deficiency.
Well, I don't really think that federal highway support can be considered a "subsidy", since it comes from gasoline taxes. It's more of a "user fee" scheme.
Federal rail support is a subsidy, since it comes from general revenue, including some of those gasoline taxes! In any case, the federal gravy train is slated to continue indefinitely. Amtrak is only required to become "operationally" self-sufficient in 2003. Uncle Sam will still be kicking in big, big, bucks to buy new capital equipment and facilities.
That's true, but those laws don't have an icecube's chance in hell of withstanding a constitutional challenge.
It is utterly clear that the electoral college is intended to be a deliberative body, and state laws compelling electors to vote a certain way are in conflict with that, and are therefore null and void.
Do you think that a state law could compel U.S. senators or representatives to vote a certain way? If not, why are electors less privileged?
Even if it was social engineering, that does not mean that it is 'just an education issue'.
When a jetliner crashes due to pilot error, the airlines and the regulators don't throw up their hands and say 'it's just an education issue for pilots'. They intensively study the systems design that allowed the error to happen, and allowed the error to have catastrophic consqeuences.
'Human factors' engineering is a big deal in aerospace. It needs to be a big deal in security as well. Saying 'just educate your employees' doesn't cut it. People are fallible, and systems must be designed with that in mind.
Instant-runoff (preferential) voting for presidential elections is indeed the right answer, as The Man says.
The exciting thing about it is that it could actually happen. For all its faults, the Electoral College has a virtue in this regard: it is a truly federal institution. Each state decides how its electors will be chosen, and can therefore be a 'laboratory' for experimenting with new electoral systems. If a few states adopt the instant runoff, they could be a model for the rest on the nation.
Of course, this will work best in states that have the popular initiative system, allowing the people to bypass the fierce opposition of the Dempublicans who control the state government.
People are capable of deciding the smallest issue. They are not capable of deciding ten of them, day after day after day.
...people who went for the representative will be unhappy because many of the direct types are making decisions with even less information than usual...
They certainly are so capable, but they (and you, and I) just don't want to take the time required to properly decide every little issue. I, however, might like the right to decide the big issues for myself.
>Switzerland has effectively had a direct democracy for some time now, and shows no sign of disappearing.
I'm curious if you have some links to information about this.
Try this link. In addition to referendums (or direct open-air democracy) at the cantonal level, the Swiss federal constitution has referendum and initiative provisions liberal enough to ensure that any contentious issue will be brought before the voters directly.
>Let the 'representative' become a 'proxy' instead.
Representatives would become even less responsive than they are now, since dissatisfied people are more likely to just vote directly than they are to try to unseat him...
Why? Even the direct voters will want a good representative for 95% (or 99.9%) of the issues that come up.
But the beauty of this scheme is that you don't have to choose 'your' representative by majority vote of your neigbors! Under the present system, if 51% of the people in your district disagree with you, you are powerless and unrepresented until the next election. Under a proxy scheme, you could designate any representative to carry your vote, and choose someone _you_ respect and trust.
What a joke! As if our esteemed representatives really care about the reality of the issues, as opposed to the political spin that can be put on them!
In any case, even if we didn't go as far as a proxy-based legislature, a referendum and initiative system on the Swiss model would go far to eliminate the abuse and arrogance of power we see in Washington every day.
The majority is rarely right, and when it is it's usually by accident.
I see. The people are to be trusted with choosing representatives, but are utterly incompentent to decide even the smallest issue. I'm sorry, but I give the public more credit than that. People already decide issues indirectly (through choosing representatives who espouse their views), and the sky won't fall if we eliminate the middleman.
If a direct democracy is ever implemented, it will be the end for this country, or whichever country it is that does it.
Bzzt! Sorry, but thanks for playing. Switzerland has effectively had a direct democracy for some time now, and shows no sign of disappearing.
There are more reasons than the technical ones as to why we have a representative, instead of a direct, democracy.
Then why not a scheme where the voter can choose either one? Let the 'representative' become a 'proxy' instead. If the voter is not interested in a particular subject, his representative votes for him. If the voter is interested enough to vote directly on an issue, his vote is counted and his representative's voting power is reduced by an equivalent amount.
With a system like this, everyone is satisfied. The 'dumb' voters you detest won't bother to vote on each issue (and won't want to), while those who want to exercise their rights directly can do so.
Actually, they are unlikely to be wasting their dollars. For now, they are wasting their Finnish Markka, and will soon be wasting Euros. :-(
Well, that depends on what state you live in. I live in Massachusetts, and that means that my vote will have no effect on the Presidential election, since it is an utter certainty that Gore will win my state. (In some other states, like Indiana, the result is just as certain the other way.)
Given that, I view my vote as a public-relations exercise, rather than something carrying direct political power. I am leaning toward Browne, but I have to admit that this discussion has made me interested in investigating Nader's positions.
Of course, Nader has some pretty nutty positions, but my real question is whether he or Browne is in a better position to pressure the major parties to pay more attention to individual rights. In the U.S. political system, that sort of pressure is the true power of third parties.
Suppose that FBI wishes, with appropriate authority, to intercept the e-mail of a particular person. Suppose further that the person's ISP volunteers to monitor such e-mail and send the results to the FBI, using an open-source program that will demonstrably satisfy the FBI's legitimate needs.
In that case, why should a court compel the installation of a secret, closed-source FBI Carnivore 'black-box' at the ISP?
What this ignores is the effects of immigration on stimulating the economy as a whole, both through new ideas and through avoidance of the upcoming demographic crunch. (This is an immutable number: the USA simply will not have enough working-age people in the coming decades unless we let more workers in.) I imagine some people considered my great-grandfather to be 'cheap labor', but both he and the country benefitted from his immigration.
I certainly do not advocate letting 'everyone in the world to immigrate to the US', but I also don't advocate the current scheme that has everything to do with family and national origin, and almost nothing to do with economics.
You can call the Social Security crisis 'FUD' if you like. I'm certainly not counting on SS, but I pity those who will have to, since people like the Game Guy will block the most effective reform.
But modern US immigation law makes it so difficult to immigrate that a large proportion of immigrants are now 'illegals': those with so little to lose that they will flout the law. The xenophobes then hold up these illegals as typical of all potential immigrants, and demand ever stricter limits, or even a complete ban on immigration (check out Pat Buchanan's rant). If young, well-educated, productive, English-speaking professionals want to come to the USA in order to work and pay taxes, why do we look a gift horse in the mouth?
BTW, there is a looming 'Social Security crisis' in the USA, since there will be more retirees and fewer workers in the coming decades. Conventional wisdom says that the 'only solution' to the crisis is either to raise taxes and/or cut benefits. But conventional wisdom is wrong. If we allow young, educated, hard-working, motivated, English-speaking people to come to the USA to work and pay taxes, the 'crisis' will disappear!
So, when the politicians end up raising your taxes now and cutting Social Security by the time you retire, you can place the blame squarely where it belongs: on the xenophobes who perpetuate the current US immigration policy.
That's true, unless the trade secret holder is very, very rich (like the Hollywood motion picture studios).
Then they get perpetual ironclad protection of their 'secret', even after it's plastered all over the Internet (and on thousands of T-shirts!).
I know Abit's behavior seems clueless at best, and arrogant at worst, but really, we (the open-source community) have no direct claim on Abit. We may not like it if they violate the GPL, and_polite_ protests may get the desired efffect, but the fundamental rights that are being violated are those of the author(s): redseb and perhaps Ben Jarvis, from whom he has "'emprunté' une grande partie du code" ('borrowed' a large part of the code).
When someone violates the GPL, as Abit is alleged to have done, what they are doing is distributing copyrighted software without a license (the GPL does not apply, since they are not complying with its terms). The appropriate response is for one or more of the authors to contact the offender and discuss licensing terms.
The author(s) may insist that the GPL be complied with, but they are fully within their rights to grant special terms to their own code, if they think it justified. Of course, all the authors would have to agree to new terms. [This may be possible in this case, since there is only one author (or a small number of them), but would be essentially impossible for something like the Linux kernel.]
I'm afraid that given current US cybersquatting law, and the fact that the Open Group now has title to the UNIX* trademark, anyone bidding on 'unix.com' had better be clear about their rights to use it before bidding.
*UNIX is no longer a trademark of AT&T Bell Labs.
It is quite true that the net will "interpret censorship as damage, and route around it", but that is cold comfort to Britons who discover that they are now 'damaged' and are being routed around.
"Nevertheless, both prudence and the deference this Court owes to pronouncements of its own Circuit oblige that it follow in the direction it is pointed until the trail falters."
The Judge then goes on to base his argument largely on Supreme Court precedents, leading me to suspect that Judge Jackson is anticipating a direct Supreme Court appeal under the Expediting Act. The ultimate disposition of case may well turn on whether the Supreme Court accepts the direct appeal.
1. dedicate enough skilled staff to review each and every such demand, and judge whether it is justified (keeping in mind that a wrong decision could be very costly), or
2. immediately cave in and remove any posting on demand (this will also require staff effort, but requires less skill). This would, of course, reduce the level of discourse to that of a corporate press release.
What with this and Labour's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill (putting encryption users at risk of prosecution if they lose their keys), Britain looks to be dropping out of the Internet race. Sad, really.
BTW, that's Courtroom #19, 7th floor. Here are directions to the courthouse.
Here is a Reuters article with information about the Iridium destruction plans.
In addition to desperately looking for new financing, the Iridium folks will be preparing a "de-orbiting" plan for safe destruction of the Iridium constellation. (If they were just left derelict, they might cause significant problems down the road.)
If there is no last-minute financial rescue by the deadline, the de-orbiting plan will start, although it may take up to six months to complete.
The act defines the terms "digital audio recording device" and "digital audio interface device" to only include devices "designed or marketed for the primary purpose of" or "designed specifically" for digital audio recording or interfacing.
General-purpose computers fall under neither category, and are therefore exempt from the SCMS requirement.
Modesty is a virtue, but we are not all completely virtuous. I would consider overuse of 'Dr.' as vanity, not arrogance. Myself, I generally use the title only in professional or formal situations, but if I feel like indulging my vanity on occasion, where's the harm? You can just write me off as another pompous Ph.D.
When I got the degree, they said I was entitled to all the 'rights and privileges attendant thereto'. As far as I can tell, the only such right or privilege is using the title 'Dr.' when you feel like it.
Well, the Webgear Aviator Pro (which I love, adding to the chorus of approval here) has both the SSID and 40-bit encryption. Probably nothing to stop a _really_ dedicated and sophisticated eavesdropper, but enough to foil the teenager cruising around the neighborhood with his laptop.
If you choose to ignore or disbelieve the overwhelming empirical evidence in favor of free trade over protectionism, I suppose this might seem a 'religious' or 'magical' belief to you. If so, have a nice life.
As for the US not practicing free trade: of course not! Neither does it provide justice to its citizens, nor does it preserve their liberties. But it does (most of the time) strive to approach those goals. The closer we (or China) get to all those goals, the better off we'll be. (Not perfect, just better.)