Yes, I was aware it was someone other than you when I was writing it.
And Ive been to Shanghai, and seen cops chasing a man trying to essentially do political advertising (distributing political pamphlets).
Which is not what I was suggesting. I don't see a problem with political leaflets. Just TV advertising.
Ive also read enough about Russia to know that, again, free speech is incredibly important, and not something we want to give up.
And yet strangely, the country that I'm talking about, Britain, it's getting a mention. Is it too much to ask for a rational discussion, and not some hyperbole about repressive states?
Right. But there's a big difference between enhancing the tones that are already there in a single shot, and compositing from more than one image, or other techniques such as shape distortion.
I have no problem with photo-journalists enhancing the tones of an image. The image still shows an actual scene. It might change the feel of an image but it doesn't change the facts that the image shows. I'd rather see an image where I can see the details than one where I can't because the exposure needed for different parts of the picture were different.
I'd have a big problem if they were compositing. But there's no evidence of that happening here.
They draw some lines showing where the sun is. They then claim this means the illumination of the faces is wrong. Without any proof, and without allowing for the possibility that they are illuminated in some other way.
Why am I reminded of the moon landing conspiracy theorists?
As to Error Level Analysis, it can indeed show composites up. But there is nothing strong enough in the ELA they show to indicate compositing.
It's pretty obvious just looming at the photo that it's been enhanced. I don't see the problem with increasing contrast, even selectively, to make a better photo. It still shows exactly what was there, and nothing else.
A composite would be different, and that would indeed be a scandal. But there's no evidence of a composite here.
No, the proper form of that question is: "why should they lose those rights as part of a corporation?"
No it's not. They already have their rights as individuals. Corporations are not individuals and therefore don't (or at least shouldn't) have democratic rights. Why do you think they don't get a vote?
Unless you are advocating for a complete ban on all "collective" political speech
We're not talking about speech, we're talking about money. Corporations paying politician's funds may or may not be bribery. But it certainly isn't speech.
The NRA? Oh they're evil, they lobby the government! The EFF? They're saints! They fight for our freedoms!
That you are constructing strawmen indicates the weakness of your arguments. I don't support any of those organisations, but I have no problem with them telling their opinions to politicians. I do have a problem with them, or any other such organisations, PAYING politicians. It's bribery.
Does libertarianism think that people's freedom should include the freedom to bribe politicians? Does it think that corporations have the same rights as individuals? If so, there are two more reasons why it's a poor political ideology.
You demonstrate my point perfectly: "Look libertarianism is a reasonable political viewpoint. But when you can't see proposals for what they are without making up some governmental control conspiracy, you've lost your way politically. You no longer have a reasonable viewpoint, you're a crank."
I come from a country that doesn't have political advertising, so I know all these things you imagine are nothing more than red herrings.
Well, for one thing the UK doesn't have elections occurring at regular intervals.
That used to be the case, but not any more. They are 5 year fixed terms now. The next UK general election will take place on 7th May 2015. We'll have to see what that does to campaign periods. It won't change the fact that there are no political TV adverts.
Not picky so much as saying a couple of true facts that were not in the scope of what I said.
No, police don't have the right to upload what they find in a search to YouTube. And you don't have to pick encryption to make it easy for future police searches.
Another thing that is outside the scope of what I said originally is the question of whether you have a duty to reveal your password if the police have a warrant. And that is still an open question, with cases still going either way and being appealed.
And I very much agree with the fact that some police are OK and some are evil and some are corrupt. And there's every shade in between.
I think you confusing feature list being promently displayed, with inculding state of the art features.
Certainly not confusing. This is a topic I know a lot about. Thought I have mentioned both those things.
And if I was to critique your argument it's that you are trying to do Apple down by arguing about archetypal premium brands. And that's that's leading you to wrong conclusions about both.
Apple is a premium brand, but that doesn't mean that everything about what they do defines premium brands in general.
If we're going down memory lane, when I was a kid, phones had rotary dials, and I remember snake first coming about as a game on new fangled glass teletypes connected to mainframes. My first program was in assembler, typed in on a hex keyboard, to a development board for an SC/MP microprocessor. That means I've seen every mainstream thing thats come and gone since the invention of the microprocessor.
The iPhone was not built by putting cutting edge features together. It was designed as a quality product. It wasn't the first touchscreen phone with apps - I'd already owned a Sony-Ericsson P800 five hears before that had those properties. As did the Palm and Windows PC phones of course. In fact the iPhone didn't even have apps or 3G at launch, when the competition did. It sold because of it's quality promise, not it's features. A quality promise that had been established by Apple with it's iPod line.
First of all those individuals already exercise their rights as individuals. Why should they get them again as part of a corporation?
Secondly, corporations which people are you considering part of the corporation? Shareholders or employees? Because low level shareholders and employees have no real say in who the corporation supports. The decision is probably made by the board of directors. Or possibly by a single large shareholder.
(Yes, shareholders can vote on things at an AGM, but in reality most corporations have the majority of their shares held by institutions, who automatically vote for the board.)
I am very careful or rights. And that's WHY I point out the damage that corporations lobbying politicians does to democracy.
It's still part of the argument. He's claiming he knows what's best for people based on the fact that he spends much of his time visiting third world countries. I'm pointing out that that's only part of the story.
The other half is his intention, which becomes more obvious if we know WHY he spends the time there.
For example, a Monsanto salesman knows about farming, and would be vigourously opposed to permaculture. But not because of what's best for the farmers, but because of what's best for Monsanto.
Similarly with an oil company man on the question of fracking. He may know about oil, geology and fracking. But you would be a fool to follow his advice about fracking in your area.
No troll, just a question of the important point he's omitting. I make no secret of my profession.
Dunno, but I-- and apparently the founders-- am of the opinion that it is better for ME to decide what sort of speech sways me, rather than someone in "the government".
Right, but chances are the reason your opinion is the same as the founding fathers is that you were brought up with that idea. It's not dissimilar to the way most people have their parents religion ingrained at a deep level.
Let me flip the question on you: Who would you rather have filtering out "trickery" and subversive ideas, your brain or someone in the government?
Banning political advertising isn't giving anyone anyone a filter. I did not say "ban advertising the government doesn't approve of".
Look libertarianism is a reasonable political viewpoint. But when you can't see proposals for what they are without making up some governmental control conspiracy, you've lost your way politically. You no longer have a reasonable viewpoint, you're a crank.
Have you considered that the reason you think those particular rights outweigh other rights (like the right to a democracy that isn't bought by the wealthy) is because you were brought up with the American constitution.
I was brought up in a different western democracy, so I can view the US constitution as a list of rights no different than any other list of rights.
I'm not following your analogy. If I'm for a position, is it bribery when I donate to a politician that shares my views? So if I were for free municipal Internet access, is it bribery if I donate money to a politician that feels the same?
Yes.
Or am I required to donate to a politician that does not share my views on an issue?
Who says politics has to be funded by people donating money to individual politicians?
Do you really want to be sold on political ideas the same way you're sold on products? With appeals to the subconscious and general trickery, rather than rational argument?
If no, then adverts are a bad idea.
If you accept political adverts are a bad thing, but only have them because the constitution prevents stopping the bad thing, then the constitution isn't as good as people think it is. Those simplistic universal rules aren't the great truths they told you at school.
While it's an intriguing idea it's impossible in practice. The guys in hollywood will just run the ads on their own without giving the money to the election campaign.
Impossible? It doesn't happen in Britain. I'm not sure if that's because it's banned or just something that's not done.
It doesn't have to be allowed to happen in America either. In addition to getting rid of the bribery of politicians, your democracy would be better without PACs doing TV ads. Policies should be discussed and debated intelligently. They shouldn't be left to advertising execs to use their hucksterish advertising on it.
Not that I'm saying that Britain has it all right either. The newspaper magnates are our greatest enemy of democracy. Rupert Murdoch in particular holds way too much sway, and he's not even British.
It also matters in how the money is spent. Money given to a politician must be spent on his election. If every penny is spent then the only thing the politician gained was the salary of the office he will hold.
And the power he gains. A politician wants to get elected more than anything.
If you're in the situation where politicians need big money to be reelected, and they change their policies to suit the rich people and organisations that can fund that reelection, then you're fucked.
It's what's wrong with American politics. And it is bribery, even if it's not going into the politician's pocket, but only his reelection fund.
What's needed is to cap funding at a fraction of the level that's allowed now. Or ideally to fund all politicians from a pot of money that's not conditional, and is at the same level for every candidate in a given race.
You don't seem to realise that that's the point at which you crossed the line into bribery. Politicians should be influenced by what their constituents say, not how much they can pay.
Policy shouldn't be about what gives them the biggest pot of funds for re-election.
Yes of course it's bribery. The only way to stop it is to make contributing to campaigns as illegal as accepting brown paper enveloped stuffed with cash.
Slashdot Mirror
You are responding to someone who is not me.
Yes, I was aware it was someone other than you when I was writing it.
And Ive been to Shanghai, and seen cops chasing a man trying to essentially do political advertising (distributing political pamphlets).
Which is not what I was suggesting. I don't see a problem with political leaflets. Just TV advertising.
Ive also read enough about Russia to know that, again, free speech is incredibly important, and not something we want to give up.
And yet strangely, the country that I'm talking about, Britain, it's getting a mention. Is it too much to ask for a rational discussion, and not some hyperbole about repressive states?
Right. But there's a big difference between enhancing the tones that are already there in a single shot, and compositing from more than one image, or other techniques such as shape distortion.
I have no problem with photo-journalists enhancing the tones of an image. The image still shows an actual scene. It might change the feel of an image but it doesn't change the facts that the image shows. I'd rather see an image where I can see the details than one where I can't because the exposure needed for different parts of the picture were different.
I'd have a big problem if they were compositing. But there's no evidence of that happening here.
I see a market for a tool to convert pictures in other formats to RAW, if there isn't one already.
It's have to be a bit clever though as RAW stores more information than other standard formats.
They draw some lines showing where the sun is. They then claim this means the illumination of the faces is wrong. Without any proof, and without allowing for the possibility that they are illuminated in some other way.
Why am I reminded of the moon landing conspiracy theorists?
As to Error Level Analysis, it can indeed show composites up. But there is nothing strong enough in the ELA they show to indicate compositing.
It's pretty obvious just looming at the photo that it's been enhanced. I don't see the problem with increasing contrast, even selectively, to make a better photo. It still shows exactly what was there, and nothing else.
A composite would be different, and that would indeed be a scandal. But there's no evidence of a composite here.
No, the proper form of that question is: "why should they lose those rights as part of a corporation?"
No it's not. They already have their rights as individuals. Corporations are not individuals and therefore don't (or at least shouldn't) have democratic rights. Why do you think they don't get a vote?
Unless you are advocating for a complete ban on all "collective" political speech
We're not talking about speech, we're talking about money. Corporations paying politician's funds may or may not be bribery. But it certainly isn't speech.
The NRA? Oh they're evil, they lobby the government!
The EFF? They're saints! They fight for our freedoms!
That you are constructing strawmen indicates the weakness of your arguments. I don't support any of those organisations, but I have no problem with them telling their opinions to politicians. I do have a problem with them, or any other such organisations, PAYING politicians. It's bribery.
Does libertarianism think that people's freedom should include the freedom to bribe politicians? Does it think that corporations have the same rights as individuals? If so, there are two more reasons why it's a poor political ideology.
You demonstrate my point perfectly: "Look libertarianism is a reasonable political viewpoint. But when you can't see proposals for what they are without making up some governmental control conspiracy, you've lost your way politically. You no longer have a reasonable viewpoint, you're a crank."
I come from a country that doesn't have political advertising, so I know all these things you imagine are nothing more than red herrings.
Well, for one thing the UK doesn't have elections occurring at regular intervals.
That used to be the case, but not any more. They are 5 year fixed terms now. The next UK general election will take place on 7th May 2015. We'll have to see what that does to campaign periods. It won't change the fact that there are no political TV adverts.
You may think I'm being picky
Not picky so much as saying a couple of true facts that were not in the scope of what I said.
No, police don't have the right to upload what they find in a search to YouTube. And you don't have to pick encryption to make it easy for future police searches.
Another thing that is outside the scope of what I said originally is the question of whether you have a duty to reveal your password if the police have a warrant. And that is still an open question, with cases still going either way and being appealed.
And I very much agree with the fact that some police are OK and some are evil and some are corrupt. And there's every shade in between.
I think you confusing feature list being promently displayed, with inculding state of the art features.
Certainly not confusing. This is a topic I know a lot about. Thought I have mentioned both those things.
And if I was to critique your argument it's that you are trying to do Apple down by arguing about archetypal premium brands. And that's that's leading you to wrong conclusions about both.
Apple is a premium brand, but that doesn't mean that everything about what they do defines premium brands in general.
If we're going down memory lane, when I was a kid, phones had rotary dials, and I remember snake first coming about as a game on new fangled glass teletypes connected to mainframes. My first program was in assembler, typed in on a hex keyboard, to a development board for an SC/MP microprocessor. That means I've seen every mainstream thing thats come and gone since the invention of the microprocessor.
The iPhone was not built by putting cutting edge features together. It was designed as a quality product. It wasn't the first touchscreen phone with apps - I'd already owned a Sony-Ericsson P800 five hears before that had those properties. As did the Palm and Windows PC phones of course. In fact the iPhone didn't even have apps or 3G at launch, when the competition did. It sold because of it's quality promise, not it's features. A quality promise that had been established by Apple with it's iPod line.
First of all those individuals already exercise their rights as individuals. Why should they get them again as part of a corporation?
Secondly, corporations which people are you considering part of the corporation? Shareholders or employees? Because low level shareholders and employees have no real say in who the corporation supports. The decision is probably made by the board of directors. Or possibly by a single large shareholder.
(Yes, shareholders can vote on things at an AGM, but in reality most corporations have the majority of their shares held by institutions, who automatically vote for the board.)
I am very careful or rights. And that's WHY I point out the damage that corporations lobbying politicians does to democracy.
It's still part of the argument. He's claiming he knows what's best for people based on the fact that he spends much of his time visiting third world countries. I'm pointing out that that's only part of the story.
The other half is his intention, which becomes more obvious if we know WHY he spends the time there.
For example, a Monsanto salesman knows about farming, and would be vigourously opposed to permaculture. But not because of what's best for the farmers, but because of what's best for Monsanto.
Similarly with an oil company man on the question of fracking. He may know about oil, geology and fracking. But you would be a fool to follow his advice about fracking in your area.
No troll, just a question of the important point he's omitting. I make no secret of my profession.
In what way is Obama's campaign any different from anyone else's campaign? Your hatred is stopping you seeing the wood for the trees.
Dunno, but I-- and apparently the founders-- am of the opinion that it is better for ME to decide what sort of speech sways me, rather than someone in "the government".
Right, but chances are the reason your opinion is the same as the founding fathers is that you were brought up with that idea. It's not dissimilar to the way most people have their parents religion ingrained at a deep level.
Let me flip the question on you: Who would you rather have filtering out "trickery" and subversive ideas, your brain or someone in the government?
Banning political advertising isn't giving anyone anyone a filter. I did not say "ban advertising the government doesn't approve of".
Look libertarianism is a reasonable political viewpoint. But when you can't see proposals for what they are without making up some governmental control conspiracy, you've lost your way politically. You no longer have a reasonable viewpoint, you're a crank.
Have you considered that the reason you think those particular rights outweigh other rights (like the right to a democracy that isn't bought by the wealthy) is because you were brought up with the American constitution.
I was brought up in a different western democracy, so I can view the US constitution as a list of rights no different than any other list of rights.
Getting people young, when the parents weren't brought up on it? McDonald's managed it without running orphanages.
I'm not following your analogy. If I'm for a position, is it bribery when I donate to a politician that shares my views? So if I were for free municipal Internet access, is it bribery if I donate money to a politician that feels the same?
Yes.
Or am I required to donate to a politician that does not share my views on an issue?
Who says politics has to be funded by people donating money to individual politicians?
Do you really want to be sold on political ideas the same way you're sold on products? With appeals to the subconscious and general trickery, rather than rational argument?
If no, then adverts are a bad idea.
If you accept political adverts are a bad thing, but only have them because the constitution prevents stopping the bad thing, then the constitution isn't as good as people think it is. Those simplistic universal rules aren't the great truths they told you at school.
Despite what certain US laws would have you think, corporations aren't people.
Maybe so. But if so, that means your constitution isn't as good as most of you think it is.
While it's an intriguing idea it's impossible in practice. The guys in hollywood will just run the ads on their own without giving the money to the election campaign.
Impossible? It doesn't happen in Britain. I'm not sure if that's because it's banned or just something that's not done.
It doesn't have to be allowed to happen in America either. In addition to getting rid of the bribery of politicians, your democracy would be better without PACs doing TV ads. Policies should be discussed and debated intelligently. They shouldn't be left to advertising execs to use their hucksterish advertising on it.
Not that I'm saying that Britain has it all right either. The newspaper magnates are our greatest enemy of democracy. Rupert Murdoch in particular holds way too much sway, and he's not even British.
It also matters in how the money is spent. Money given to a politician must be spent on his election. If every penny is spent then the only thing the politician gained was the salary of the office he will hold.
And the power he gains. A politician wants to get elected more than anything.
If you're in the situation where politicians need big money to be reelected, and they change their policies to suit the rich people and organisations that can fund that reelection, then you're fucked.
It's what's wrong with American politics. And it is bribery, even if it's not going into the politician's pocket, but only his reelection fund.
What's needed is to cap funding at a fraction of the level that's allowed now. Or ideally to fund all politicians from a pot of money that's not conditional, and is at the same level for every candidate in a given race.
I paid for
You don't seem to realise that that's the point at which you crossed the line into bribery. Politicians should be influenced by what their constituents say, not how much they can pay.
Policy shouldn't be about what gives them the biggest pot of funds for re-election.
Yes of course it's bribery. The only way to stop it is to make contributing to campaigns as illegal as accepting brown paper enveloped stuffed with cash.
If you're going to go through past posts, at least say something substantive. You're just coming across as petulant.
I'm not the one trying to make a song and dance over "I don't care".
So no, there is no irony. Just your hatred of a dead man.