That is a problem, true, but hardly a problem unique to firefox. What happens when your favorite windows-based closed-source program closes up shop? It's the same thing--you find something else, or if you MUST have it, you make your own (if you have the skill).
In other words, it is an interesting argument, but hardly unique and certainly not a deal breaker.
It's pretty simple--if I can get this, I will. I doubt it, since I live in a Bellsouth calling area, but if they'll give it to me, I'd do it in a heartbeat. And I would keep my vonage service.
This is awesome news!
Go evil monopoly corporation #43234az39!!
Re:Not gonna work if encumbered
on
Replacing TCP?
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I tend to agree. For things like this, BSD licenses make more sense than the GPL (which is great, but it doesn't suit everyone, and never will).
so says the man witt the linuxisforfags email address.
Look, I don't like the current state of copyright in this country. I also don't think that those who accessed the game initially are right. It may or may not be theft, but it is certainly immoral. It is their property, after all, and they have the right to do whatever they like with it.
As far as it being theft or not, think of it this way--if it were east Antarticans (fictional) sneaking in and taking a copy of the United States plans for a nuclear missile, I think most everyone would agree that it was theft, even if they left everything intact at the facility. This is the same thing, even if it is just a game.
Now, the difference is once it has been published. At that point, I do think that fair use is fine, and I do believe that a person has a right to do whatever they like with it, so long as they don't make money off it. Share it with a friend? Fine, just don't sell it.
If I had the money, I would never pirate anything. Being on the lower side of the economy at the moment (graduate school ain't cheap, and doesn't pay too great, neither), I have occasionally used a game that would be considered pirated. I don't right now, because I simply don't have time for much in the way of games.
The same is true for music--if I like an album, I buy it--supporting good music is important. I know lots of people who are into the indie scene, but generally I like certain artists, and I buy their stuff, regardless (examples: Vanessa Mae, Bare Naked Ladies, They Might Be Giants) of the publisher. Do I like the RIAA? Not at all. But I will support specific bands that happen to use that publishing route because I think it sends a message about what music is worth having.
I also use iTunes. Why? Because it is really quite useful, it works, and it supports an alternative distribution model. I do wish the artists got more from each download, but that's another story.
Now, as far as GTA:San Andreas itself is concerned? They can rot for all I care--that game is bad!
I think you have missed some of the point of an analogy--it is a simplistic comparison by nature. Almost EVERY analogy falls apart under in depth scrutiny. Accept it for what it is--an educational tool to let people understand the open source philosophy a little better.
I do agree with why linux works, even though that is hardly the whole of it. Remember, unlike unix or windows, if a single linux vendor dies, it won't matter because there are many others, and lots of people contribute. At some point, linus will need to hand over control of the kernel, but that isn't such a big deal--there are lot of very competent people who are already maintainers that could do the job with ease.
No, linux can't be killed, because of its bazaar-like qualities. It may have to evolve, and mutate, but overall, it will survive. The same may or may not be true of windows. IF windows survives, it will be by taking bits of the linux philosophy and latching on.
Enough said.
Back to Xandros--yes I signed up, and why not? If I can help them make their distro better, then I will! Everything we do to help any portion of the linux community is good. Even Xandros
No, actually, MS does not market what people want, they market what they have and try to change what people want to match their product. Unfortunately, that doesn't end up working either.
I have met very few people that loved everything about windows--many times they just blame "computers" in general, not realizing that buggy, laggy, insecure operating systems are more to blame than their hardware. MS has done a wonderful job of making windows seem ubiquitous to most people, and therefore that's what they look for.
I think if most people realized how stable linux can be, they would want to switch. Of course, they get scared when their favorite software isn't available, and I wish that were different (but since I am not a professional programmer, I can do little to change that from a tech view).
Walmart, is not perfect either, and I never claimed it was. Walmart tends to market low-cost goods to consumers who are unconcerned with quality. I shop there for the same reason that most others do--it's convenient. They have pricing that matches the competition on most goods (note that Walmart does NOT see themselves as competing with places like Newegg.com, or other e-tailers).
Do I like all their business practices--not particularly, but that's not surprising, as most places do things I don't like. If I refused to shop at places that conducted their business questionably, I doubt that I would have anywhere left to shop!
It's also similar to the method used for tracing bullets from a specific gun. "Hey, here's another AK-47, and it's the same gun!" There are things that can be done to change the way the gun handles so that it's not quite the same, and that's like changing ink cartridges.
I have a very different take on Walmart. They are successful for one reason-they market what consumers want. This is what makes them different from the Redmond Giant. Walmart has made themselves based on extraordinarily good pricing. Their methods of getting that pricing are sometimes dubious, sure, but they provide what people want, and usually at a good price.
Will they continue to do so once they have wiped out all the competition? Probably not, but I don't think that Walmart will ever be competition free.
There will always be conscientious objectors to the big W, and they will shop somewhere else. There is Target, which has made some very smart decisions on how to carry a very similar product line, yet be compelling. They are price competitive on most items, but they also market to a higher class customer, and tend to have more trendy goods than Walmart (their home decor is especially telling). I think target is here to stay. They are avoiding the mistake of Kmart, and not trying to imitate Walmart to closely (which is what killed Kmart, largely--there was little to differentiate the two, and Walmart consistently beat them on price).
Is Walmart perfect? No. I hope they get slammed in the current class action suit under Title VII (gender discrimination in wages). They deserve it.
Can people earn a living at Walmart? Probably not until you get to the Management level. This means that you need to either work your way up, or move on. It makes the perfect job for high-school and college kids trying to make a few extra bucks. It doesn't work for anyone with the desire to work there for the rest of their lives, unless they can make management.
Allow me to reiterate my position: I do not support the concept of gay marriage. I think it is wrong. I also think that marriage is a religious question. It is a moral construct as well as a social contract. If you take the concept of allowing people to worship how, where or what they may, (or even if they wish), then you must accept that some people are going to honestly believe that gay marriage is right and good.
I disagree with them, and will teach my children the same principles that I hold--that marriage is meant to be between a man and a woman.
That said, I am pushing for the elevation of marriage to purely religious status (and yes, I do see it as an elevation), and reserving the status of civil union for non-religious social contracts. This civil union would not carry governmental benefits (for the most part), and neither would marriage. The government should not give incentives for such things. As I see it, with the civil union, there would be no reason to restrict it along the traditional lines.
I personally wish that this was not an issue. I don't like having to deal with these types of things. They are messy in that they can cause very good people to lose their rationality and say some very stupid things.
However, I do think that people do need to be allowed to follow their convictions. I also believe that I have a right to speak out about my own. No one has to listen to me, and I don't have to listen to them, but we all have the right to speak.
In the system I envision, if two men or women decide that they want to marry, and can find a minister willing to do so, who truly holds that as a conviction, then how can I say that it is not a truly held belief--even as much as my belief that it is wrong? I cannot make that claim. I hold, very dearly, the belief that people should have freedom to live according to the dictates of their conscience. How can I say that those who wish to join themselves to another of the same sex are not doing that? I don't believe it, but I can't credibly make that claim.
I am not entirely tied to this idea, but I think it a reasonable compromise. Codifying same-sex marriage into or out of the law just seems like a poor plan.
As far as other types of "non-traditional" marriage, you mention polygamy. I have some very bad news for you--polygamy is a very time-honored tradition. It has been practiced in most cultures at some point--Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and many others, have all accepted polygamy at some point (and before you get all uppity about Christianity, remember that Abraham and David are both hailed as great prophets, and were both polygamist--how is something that was accepted by Abraham so patently wrong?). This doesn't make it right for us in our day, but remember that there are times when it makes sense for a culture (one in which there are many more females than males, and there is a need to increase the population growth--survival is usually the best reason).
I am simply saying that while I don't like the concept, it is a religious question best settled by the churches of our land, not by the courts or congress. Marriage, in my mind, is a sacred institution that should be handled by those who lay claim to the sacred--the churches. The legal side of it should be small (and for the sake of avoiding messy legal issues, the civil union would need to be kept; it would help resolve issues of child custody, for instance), and largely irrelevant. If a legitimate religion wants to allow such a thing, then that is their business. But I will not have the government support this, nor do I think they should prohibit this. It is all a matter of religion. Leave government out of it.
I don't know about all that, but this is a situation where you begin to move from civil union to "family incorporated". Maybe not a bad idea. I'd have to think about it.
I will most likely get flamed for this one, but here's an instance where I disagree with all of the candidates (although I support Bush).
In my mind, the concept of marriage is a religious issue, and should be handled on that level. The state should have nothing to say on the issue. Nader, who typically maintains the concept of separation of church and state, failed on this one too.
Gay "marriage" does not exist in my mind--I oppose it. But I see it as a religious/moral question that should be adjudicated by the church to which the individuals belong. If they do not belong to any church, then they do not need to worry about it.
The separate concept, a civil union, is a contractual issue. There have typically been benefits of such a union given by the state (such as tax breaks), but there is no real basis for such a situation, if both members of the union are working members of society. There have also been traditional benefits of these unions in the workplace, such as healthcare.
It is my opinion, that a civil union should only carry those benefits which make sense--such as healthcare, or possibly a tax break if only one member of the union works (and is therefore dependent on the other for their wellbeing)[1].
Therefore, a civil union should be allowed between any two adults that deem it desirable, regardless of sexual orientation (if two straight men wanted to enter into such a union, that would be fine with me). However, there would no longer be any benefit from the government for doing so. I doubt, under my conceptualization, that there would be many individuals who are willing to enter into this union. Also, under this plan, the only way that an adult would be allowed to consider another adult a dependent (other than a child with psychotic[2] mental impairment), would be via a civil union, and proving that they are responsible for more than 50% of the individuals support.
Marriage, would be a separate issue, and not necessarily require a civil union. It would be a "legal" contract, but not in the sense that it is now. As I see it, if two men or two women wanted a marriage, and could find an established religion willing to perform the ceremony, there should be no bar to that.
This flies in the face of what many in my church believe, and what most staunch conservatives think. This is, however, an issue that most do not get. Why should the government have any say in who is allowed to be civilly joined? Only if that government is providing some benefit to those individuals. Remove the benefit, I say, and the reason for the government to be concerned with it at all.
As a final note, Nader has it wrong to. The answer is NOT "legalize gay marriage", but to move government out of the realm of marriage altogether. Also note that we are not the only country with this problem. What the rest of the world does with this situation should be interesting.
1-That said, I favor repeal of all income taxes, and the move to some form of federal sales tax.
In some ways, there are those who lump Mormons in with Catholics--according to those worthies (generally born-again types), neither are "Christian", although both espouse a belief in God, Christ and the Holy Ghost (although there are differences in conceptualization of those beings among all parties).
I am always disturbed when I hear someone claim that a particular church is not Christian. It isn't our place to do that, regardless of how we view that religion, and whether we agree with their tenets.
Since you haven't shown any proof of your statements, then I don't feel the need to do so either.
I have heard a number of credible sources state that the case for global warming is not that strong. From what I remember, we know that there has been a very slight warming trend over the past few decades--but that we aren't truly certain of the causes. Remember, the correlation between rising C02 levels and rising temperatures is just that--a correlation, which does not indicate causality. This is a basic tenet of statistical based research.
Another important fact to remember is that we simply don't have the data over a long enough period to know if the current trend is abnormal, or if it is a cycle that repeats itself every so often.
Am I willing to dismiss, without any evidence, the possibility of global warming? Do I think that companies shouldn't be very careful? Do I think that companies should be allowed to run rampant and throw unlimited amounts of contaminants into the air? Absolutely not, on all counts. I think we should be careful.
That said, I do think that there is an OTHER side. One that is willing to learn and take measured, cautious action on this front, but isn't going to go nuts and react too quickly.
Remember this: if the attackers have physical access to the machine, there is almost no security to speak of. You may be able to limit access to one machine at a time (thus preventing intranet assualts), but once an attacker is sitting at the computer in question, there is very little that they cannot do. This is true for both windows and linux. Even password theft is possible on Linux, given the right amount of time.
Certainly some attacks take longer, but in general, if they have your machine, its too late for security!
Many of them are the result of authoring tools such as Frontpage and Dreamweaver. While wysiwyg editors can be quick, they are also dirty. Even dreamweaver is lacking in a number of pretty darn important ways (such as how it still puts deprecated attributes in table tags, even when XHTML compliance is turned on).
Frontpage is a hack. No further comments.
Quanta, which is an interesting and useful editor, is great, but not as a wysiwyg, which is what most non-technical people want. I don't have any experience with Nvu.
Personally, I use Scite (not caring for wysiwyg myself), but it lacks tag completion for html/css. If someone would fix that little issue, then I would be extremely happy.
The long and short of it is this: those of us who do web development and come from a coding background tend to want to write in code. But those folks coming from no tech or graphic design tend to prefer wysiwyg, which doesn't teach anything about standards.
However, as a web developer myself, I pretty code to standard, and then hack for IE. It's a slightly different mentality, but I find that when an agent is fully compliant, it makes it EASIER and FASTER to design for it.
I'm not sure I follow your logic. How does that mean that China is not imposing some type of leverage on N. Korea? I would see just the opposite, to be honest. Could you elucidate please?
He didn't say that decrypting a satellite signal was OK, just that the penalty for an individual doing this was different from the penalty for a corporation doing this, and that this difference is wrong.
I agree with his sentiment. Corporations should NOT be treated as personages, but as extensions of the owners (shareholders) and controllers (CEO, board of directors, shareholders, etc). Thus if a companies executives (controllers) make a decision that is illegal, they should be held responsible for that decision in the same fashion that any individual would be (such as you, sirwired). This would have a large effect on the behavior of companies, and who was willing to invest in a company.
If, for example, I knew that, as a shareholder, I could be held partly responsible for the behavior of any company in which I invested, then I would be VERY careful about what companies I gave my money to as an investment. I would also, along with most other people, monitor their activity very closely, and tell that company to cut it out if they started misbehaving.
In the current system, there is little, if any, check to the behavior of a company. M$'s anti-trust suit is an example of how big money can affect the ability of a company to do whatever they like.
I am not a fan of big government, or big business. Both should be small enough to feel the forces of economic shifts. M$ arguably is immune to this, because they have such a broad array of patents and cash.
There are two major things that can be done to encourage competition and good behavior. First, limit the holding of all copyrights and patents to 5 years, non-extensible--for all cases in which a company is the controlling entity in the use of either. In cases where an individual is the controlling entity (such as a book author), copyright should be granted for the life of the individual, for that individual (that is, if the individual decides to sell the copyright to a company, rather than lease that copyright, then it would expire in 5 years). This scenario would also work for patents. This would give individuals sufficient incentive to innovate outside of the corporate stronghold, but keep companies from sitting on patents and copyrights indefinitely (aka Disney).
The second I have already covered--the treatment of the executors of a company as wholly responsible for the actions of that company.
The laws around this would have to be carefully written to close loopholes to the intent of the law, and to prevent certain possible abuses, but I feel that this would have several effects:
First, companies, guided by the executors, would behave more responsibly, driven by the fear of real consequences.
Secondly, the current bevy of lawsuits over patents would be limited to recent innovations. Companies would no longer be able to worry about the infringement of patents years old.
Third, companies would be forced to innovate quickly. In order to stay ahead of the competition and be certain that money would still roll in 5 years down the road, there would need to be constant innovation. This need for near instant invention of new processes and products would generate a large number of highly technical and skilled jobs--the kind that pay. This would give jobs to those who are exiting school with the good technical (probably engineering, but other areas too) skills. Older workers are protected by the ADEA to a certain degree, and would be able to leverage experience and supervision skills to remain a viable part of the work-force.
Fourth, as companies realize the need for a better educated work force, many would begin to fund private schools in a fashion that they would be available even for those who could not otherwise afford it. Public schools would also get some benefit from this as well.
There is a personal benefit in this two--as the need for a more technical and capable work force emerges, there will be a need for those who are skilled in devising a method to select, hire and motivate these individuals. That is my area of expertise (besides incredibly insightful social commentary--') ).
I've rambled, but really, what I am trying to say is that I am glad Diebold lost, now here's hoping they get hit with a real penalty...
Slashdot Mirror
That is a problem, true, but hardly a problem unique to firefox. What happens when your favorite windows-based closed-source program closes up shop? It's the same thing--you find something else, or if you MUST have it, you make your own (if you have the skill).
In other words, it is an interesting argument, but hardly unique and certainly not a deal breaker.
that's great, except that firefox will auto update extensions. I think even ones installed on an older versions.
It's pretty simple--if I can get this, I will. I doubt it, since I live in a Bellsouth calling area, but if they'll give it to me, I'd do it in a heartbeat. And I would keep my vonage service.
This is awesome news!
Go evil monopoly corporation #43234az39!!
I tend to agree. For things like this, BSD licenses make more sense than the GPL (which is great, but it doesn't suit everyone, and never will).
so says the man witt the linuxisforfags email address.
Look, I don't like the current state of copyright in this country. I also don't think that those who accessed the game initially are right. It may or may not be theft, but it is certainly immoral. It is their property, after all, and they have the right to do whatever they like with it.
As far as it being theft or not, think of it this way--if it were east Antarticans (fictional) sneaking in and taking a copy of the United States plans for a nuclear missile, I think most everyone would agree that it was theft, even if they left everything intact at the facility. This is the same thing, even if it is just a game.
Now, the difference is once it has been published. At that point, I do think that fair use is fine, and I do believe that a person has a right to do whatever they like with it, so long as they don't make money off it. Share it with a friend? Fine, just don't sell it.
If I had the money, I would never pirate anything. Being on the lower side of the economy at the moment (graduate school ain't cheap, and doesn't pay too great, neither), I have occasionally used a game that would be considered pirated. I don't right now, because I simply don't have time for much in the way of games.
The same is true for music--if I like an album, I buy it--supporting good music is important. I know lots of people who are into the indie scene, but generally I like certain artists, and I buy their stuff, regardless (examples: Vanessa Mae, Bare Naked Ladies, They Might Be Giants) of the publisher. Do I like the RIAA? Not at all. But I will support specific bands that happen to use that publishing route because I think it sends a message about what music is worth having.
I also use iTunes. Why? Because it is really quite useful, it works, and it supports an alternative distribution model. I do wish the artists got more from each download, but that's another story.
Now, as far as GTA:San Andreas itself is concerned? They can rot for all I care--that game is bad!
I think you have missed some of the point of an analogy--it is a simplistic comparison by nature. Almost EVERY analogy falls apart under in depth scrutiny. Accept it for what it is--an educational tool to let people understand the open source philosophy a little better.
I do agree with why linux works, even though that is hardly the whole of it. Remember, unlike unix or windows, if a single linux vendor dies, it won't matter because there are many others, and lots of people contribute. At some point, linus will need to hand over control of the kernel, but that isn't such a big deal--there are lot of very competent people who are already maintainers that could do the job with ease.
No, linux can't be killed, because of its bazaar-like qualities. It may have to evolve, and mutate, but overall, it will survive. The same may or may not be true of windows. IF windows survives, it will be by taking bits of the linux philosophy and latching on.
Enough said.
Back to Xandros--yes I signed up, and why not? If I can help them make their distro better, then I will! Everything we do to help any portion of the linux community is good. Even Xandros
No, actually, MS does not market what people want, they market what they have and try to change what people want to match their product. Unfortunately, that doesn't end up working either.
I have met very few people that loved everything about windows--many times they just blame "computers" in general, not realizing that buggy, laggy, insecure operating systems are more to blame than their hardware. MS has done a wonderful job of making windows seem ubiquitous to most people, and therefore that's what they look for.
I think if most people realized how stable linux can be, they would want to switch. Of course, they get scared when their favorite software isn't available, and I wish that were different (but since I am not a professional programmer, I can do little to change that from a tech view).
Walmart, is not perfect either, and I never claimed it was. Walmart tends to market low-cost goods to consumers who are unconcerned with quality. I shop there for the same reason that most others do--it's convenient. They have pricing that matches the competition on most goods (note that Walmart does NOT see themselves as competing with places like Newegg.com, or other e-tailers).
Do I like all their business practices--not particularly, but that's not surprising, as most places do things I don't like. If I refused to shop at places that conducted their business questionably, I doubt that I would have anywhere left to shop!
It's also similar to the method used for tracing bullets from a specific gun. "Hey, here's another AK-47, and it's the same gun!" There are things that can be done to change the way the gun handles so that it's not quite the same, and that's like changing ink cartridges.
Which is a little bit difficult, all things considered.
I have a very different take on Walmart. They are successful for one reason-they market what consumers want. This is what makes them different from the Redmond Giant. Walmart has made themselves based on extraordinarily good pricing. Their methods of getting that pricing are sometimes dubious, sure, but they provide what people want, and usually at a good price.
Will they continue to do so once they have wiped out all the competition? Probably not, but I don't think that Walmart will ever be competition free.
There will always be conscientious objectors to the big W, and they will shop somewhere else. There is Target, which has made some very smart decisions on how to carry a very similar product line, yet be compelling. They are price competitive on most items, but they also market to a higher class customer, and tend to have more trendy goods than Walmart (their home decor is especially telling). I think target is here to stay. They are avoiding the mistake of Kmart, and not trying to imitate Walmart to closely (which is what killed Kmart, largely--there was little to differentiate the two, and Walmart consistently beat them on price).
Is Walmart perfect? No. I hope they get slammed in the current class action suit under Title VII (gender discrimination in wages). They deserve it.
Can people earn a living at Walmart? Probably not until you get to the Management level. This means that you need to either work your way up, or move on. It makes the perfect job for high-school and college kids trying to make a few extra bucks. It doesn't work for anyone with the desire to work there for the rest of their lives, unless they can make management.
Allow me to reiterate my position:
I do not support the concept of gay marriage. I think it is wrong. I also think that marriage is a religious question. It is a moral construct as well as a social contract. If you take the concept of allowing people to worship how, where or what they may, (or even if they wish), then you must accept that some people are going to honestly believe that gay marriage is right and good.
I disagree with them, and will teach my children the same principles that I hold--that marriage is meant to be between a man and a woman.
That said, I am pushing for the elevation of marriage to purely religious status (and yes, I do see it as an elevation), and reserving the status of civil union for non-religious social contracts. This civil union would not carry governmental benefits (for the most part), and neither would marriage. The government should not give incentives for such things. As I see it, with the civil union, there would be no reason to restrict it along the traditional lines.
I personally wish that this was not an issue. I don't like having to deal with these types of things. They are messy in that they can cause very good people to lose their rationality and say some very stupid things.
However, I do think that people do need to be allowed to follow their convictions. I also believe that I have a right to speak out about my own. No one has to listen to me, and I don't have to listen to them, but we all have the right to speak.
In the system I envision, if two men or women decide that they want to marry, and can find a minister willing to do so, who truly holds that as a conviction, then how can I say that it is not a truly held belief--even as much as my belief that it is wrong? I cannot make that claim. I hold, very dearly, the belief that people should have freedom to live according to the dictates of their conscience. How can I say that those who wish to join themselves to another of the same sex are not doing that? I don't believe it, but I can't credibly make that claim.
I am not entirely tied to this idea, but I think it a reasonable compromise. Codifying same-sex marriage into or out of the law just seems like a poor plan.
As far as other types of "non-traditional" marriage, you mention polygamy. I have some very bad news for you--polygamy is a very time-honored tradition. It has been practiced in most cultures at some point--Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and many others, have all accepted polygamy at some point (and before you get all uppity about Christianity, remember that Abraham and David are both hailed as great prophets, and were both polygamist--how is something that was accepted by Abraham so patently wrong?). This doesn't make it right for us in our day, but remember that there are times when it makes sense for a culture (one in which there are many more females than males, and there is a need to increase the population growth--survival is usually the best reason).
I am simply saying that while I don't like the concept, it is a religious question best settled by the churches of our land, not by the courts or congress. Marriage, in my mind, is a sacred institution that should be handled by those who lay claim to the sacred--the churches. The legal side of it should be small (and for the sake of avoiding messy legal issues, the civil union would need to be kept; it would help resolve issues of child custody, for instance), and largely irrelevant. If a legitimate religion wants to allow such a thing, then that is their business. But I will not have the government support this, nor do I think they should prohibit this. It is all a matter of religion. Leave government out of it.
I don't know about all that, but this is a situation where you begin to move from civil union to "family incorporated". Maybe not a bad idea. I'd have to think about it.
I will most likely get flamed for this one, but here's an instance where I disagree with all of the candidates (although I support Bush).
In my mind, the concept of marriage is a religious issue, and should be handled on that level. The state should have nothing to say on the issue. Nader, who typically maintains the concept of separation of church and state, failed on this one too.
Gay "marriage" does not exist in my mind--I oppose it. But I see it as a religious/moral question that should be adjudicated by the church to which the individuals belong. If they do not belong to any church, then they do not need to worry about it.
The separate concept, a civil union, is a contractual issue. There have typically been benefits of such a union given by the state (such as tax breaks), but there is no real basis for such a situation, if both members of the union are working members of society. There have also been traditional benefits of these unions in the workplace, such as healthcare.
It is my opinion, that a civil union should only carry those benefits which make sense--such as healthcare, or possibly a tax break if only one member of the union works (and is therefore dependent on the other for their wellbeing)[1].
Therefore, a civil union should be allowed between any two adults that deem it desirable, regardless of sexual orientation (if two straight men wanted to enter into such a union, that would be fine with me). However, there would no longer be any benefit from the government for doing so. I doubt, under my conceptualization, that there would be many individuals who are willing to enter into this union. Also, under this plan, the only way that an adult would be allowed to consider another adult a dependent (other than a child with psychotic[2] mental impairment), would be via a civil union, and proving that they are responsible for more than 50% of the individuals support.
Marriage, would be a separate issue, and not necessarily require a civil union. It would be a "legal" contract, but not in the sense that it is now. As I see it, if two men or two women wanted a marriage, and could find an established religion willing to perform the ceremony, there should be no bar to that.
This flies in the face of what many in my church believe, and what most staunch conservatives think. This is, however, an issue that most do not get. Why should the government have any say in who is allowed to be civilly joined? Only if that government is providing some benefit to those individuals. Remove the benefit, I say, and the reason for the government to be concerned with it at all.
As a final note, Nader has it wrong to. The answer is NOT "legalize gay marriage", but to move government out of the realm of marriage altogether. Also note that we are not the only country with this problem. What the rest of the world does with this situation should be interesting.
1-That said, I favor repeal of all income taxes, and the move to some form of federal sales tax.
In some ways, there are those who lump Mormons in with Catholics--according to those worthies (generally born-again types), neither are "Christian", although both espouse a belief in God, Christ and the Holy Ghost (although there are differences in conceptualization of those beings among all parties).
I am always disturbed when I hear someone claim that a particular church is not Christian. It isn't our place to do that, regardless of how we view that religion, and whether we agree with their tenets.
No you're not, and for a second, I thought I cared. Now that I realized that I was wrong, I know that I don't care.
Blah.
Since you haven't shown any proof of your statements, then I don't feel the need to do so either.
I have heard a number of credible sources state that the case for global warming is not that strong. From what I remember, we know that there has been a very slight warming trend over the past few decades--but that we aren't truly certain of the causes. Remember, the correlation between rising C02 levels and rising temperatures is just that--a correlation, which does not indicate causality. This is a basic tenet of statistical based research.
Another important fact to remember is that we simply don't have the data over a long enough period to know if the current trend is abnormal, or if it is a cycle that repeats itself every so often.
Am I willing to dismiss, without any evidence, the possibility of global warming? Do I think that companies shouldn't be very careful? Do I think that companies should be allowed to run rampant and throw unlimited amounts of contaminants into the air? Absolutely not, on all counts. I think we should be careful.
That said, I do think that there is an OTHER side. One that is willing to learn and take measured, cautious action on this front, but isn't going to go nuts and react too quickly.
Remember this: if the attackers have physical access to the machine, there is almost no security to speak of. You may be able to limit access to one machine at a time (thus preventing intranet assualts), but once an attacker is sitting at the computer in question, there is very little that they cannot do. This is true for both windows and linux. Even password theft is possible on Linux, given the right amount of time.
Certainly some attacks take longer, but in general, if they have your machine, its too late for security!
Many of them are the result of authoring tools such as Frontpage and Dreamweaver. While wysiwyg editors can be quick, they are also dirty. Even dreamweaver is lacking in a number of pretty darn important ways (such as how it still puts deprecated attributes in table tags, even when XHTML compliance is turned on).
Frontpage is a hack. No further comments.
Quanta, which is an interesting and useful editor, is great, but not as a wysiwyg, which is what most non-technical people want. I don't have any experience with Nvu.
Personally, I use Scite (not caring for wysiwyg myself), but it lacks tag completion for html/css. If someone would fix that little issue, then I would be extremely happy.
The long and short of it is this: those of us who do web development and come from a coding background tend to want to write in code. But those folks coming from no tech or graphic design tend to prefer wysiwyg, which doesn't teach anything about standards.
Either way, standards are important.
However, as a web developer myself, I pretty code to standard, and then hack for IE. It's a slightly different mentality, but I find that when an agent is fully compliant, it makes it EASIER and FASTER to design for it.
I'm not sure I follow your logic. How does that mean that China is not imposing some type of leverage on N. Korea? I would see just the opposite, to be honest. Could you elucidate please?
He didn't say that decrypting a satellite signal was OK, just that the penalty for an individual doing this was different from the penalty for a corporation doing this, and that this difference is wrong.
I agree with his sentiment. Corporations should NOT be treated as personages, but as extensions of the owners (shareholders) and controllers (CEO, board of directors, shareholders, etc). Thus if a companies executives (controllers) make a decision that is illegal, they should be held responsible for that decision in the same fashion that any individual would be (such as you, sirwired). This would have a large effect on the behavior of companies, and who was willing to invest in a company.
If, for example, I knew that, as a shareholder, I could be held partly responsible for the behavior of any company in which I invested, then I would be VERY careful about what companies I gave my money to as an investment. I would also, along with most other people, monitor their activity very closely, and tell that company to cut it out if they started misbehaving.
In the current system, there is little, if any, check to the behavior of a company. M$'s anti-trust suit is an example of how big money can affect the ability of a company to do whatever they like.
I am not a fan of big government, or big business. Both should be small enough to feel the forces of economic shifts. M$ arguably is immune to this, because they have such a broad array of patents and cash.
There are two major things that can be done to encourage competition and good behavior. First, limit the holding of all copyrights and patents to 5 years, non-extensible--for all cases in which a company is the controlling entity in the use of either. In cases where an individual is the controlling entity (such as a book author), copyright should be granted for the life of the individual, for that individual (that is, if the individual decides to sell the copyright to a company, rather than lease that copyright, then it would expire in 5 years). This scenario would also work for patents. This would give individuals sufficient incentive to innovate outside of the corporate stronghold, but keep companies from sitting on patents and copyrights indefinitely (aka Disney).
The second I have already covered--the treatment of the executors of a company as wholly responsible for the actions of that company.
The laws around this would have to be carefully written to close loopholes to the intent of the law, and to prevent certain possible abuses, but I feel that this would have several effects:
First, companies, guided by the executors, would behave more responsibly, driven by the fear of real consequences.
Secondly, the current bevy of lawsuits over patents would be limited to recent innovations. Companies would no longer be able to worry about the infringement of patents years old.
Third, companies would be forced to innovate quickly. In order to stay ahead of the competition and be certain that money would still roll in 5 years down the road, there would need to be constant innovation. This need for near instant invention of new processes and products would generate a large number of highly technical and skilled jobs--the kind that pay. This would give jobs to those who are exiting school with the good technical (probably engineering, but other areas too) skills. Older workers are protected by the ADEA to a certain degree, and would be able to leverage experience and supervision skills to remain a viable part of the work-force.
Fourth, as companies realize the need for a better educated work force, many would begin to fund private schools in a fashion that they would be available even for those who could not otherwise afford it. Public schools would also get some benefit from this as well.
There is a personal benefit in this two--as the need for a more technical and capable work force emerges, there will be a need for those who are skilled in devising a method to select, hire and motivate these individuals. That is my area of expertise (besides incredibly insightful social commentary--') ).
I've rambled, but really, what I am trying to say is that I am glad Diebold lost, now here's hoping they get hit with a real penalty...
Hey, I am curious--where can we see a demo, screenshots or even play the game you wrote in Java? OR the QIII port? I'd love to see how it does.
Oh, that's even better. We'd all better get busy providing Apache, then.
Funny thing is that they allow you to read /. I'd think that this would be one of the first sites on the list...
ah--good, they only mention those running IIS, so if I run Apache, I can serve anything I want, right?