Simple economics in my opinion. Boils down to taxes. We tax labor and that screws up the economic system and pushes all but a lucky few into a form of indentured servitude we call "getting a job". The solution? Easy, don't tax labor, tax something else, the best alternative is to tax land and natural resources. Lots more detail at http://www.henrygeorge.org and other sites.
I have about 10-20 wierd "words" I munge and cycle through for passwords. Policy is now 90 day passwords. Yeesh. Too burdensome as far as I'm concerned but you gotta do what you gotta do. I am waiting with bated breath for the day when computers are smart enough to recognise you by sight, sound and scent. "I'm sorry Bob, please run around the building twice and then attempt to log in again, your scent levels are too low for a positive id."
Re:So why is Gentoo the right choice for this?
on
Embedded Gentoo?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Well, someone has probably already pointed this out but the openembedded.org build system is kinda similar to gentoo in a way. Personally I'd like to see a rubyx or gentoo marriage with openembedded so that developing for embedded devices (a cheap old ipaq H3650 in my case) and keeping the software up to date is made easier. Note that although it is technically feasible to compile on the ipaq cross compiling is orders of magnetude faster and thus worth the setup pain IMHO.
Oh, and to qualify my comment: I'm a wannabe developer, I still haven't gotten an oe build for my iPAQ that I'm happy with.
Look, the moment we think that we are powerless then, sure as s*it, we are powerless. Come on people, fight! Quit pointing fingers, choose an action and do it. I believe that there are still enough checks and balances in the system that a difference can be made. Oh, btw, if you don't particularly want to do the work yourself, find an organisation that is working on the problem and give them a few bucks.
Again, another counter argument can be made. When determining 'the cost' to business, what does cost actually mean. Is it more costly to a single business, when there idea is not patentable? Is it more costly to business as a whole, where they are excluded from using a patented method?
Who cares how much it costs to implement? There are existing mechanisms for protecting implementations! I've never seen the code that Amazon uses for their "one click" stuff. They keep it a secret and that is fine. The fundamental question is - would Amazon have chosen to *not* implement the "one click" idea in the absence of patents? The answer is of course not. The "one click" would (presumably) be attractive to customers and we know that the cost of implementation is minimal. No patent protection is needed because there is every reason to implement (irregardless of lack of patent protection) and no reason to not implement! Patenting business ideas does not benefit society as a whole because business ideas are a dime a dozen and the value is in the implementation which is protected by existing law.
I'd like to see proponents of business patents come up with an example of a business idea or method where there is a risk of that idea being kept secret or not implemented due to fear that someone else will take the idea and be more sucessful.
Your likelihood of getting a patent now may have less to do with how good or novel the design or process is, and more to do with how many lawyers you can afford.
Which brings to mind the thought that if patents could only be held by individuals some of these issues would become moot. If I patent something it automatically belongs to the Corp. for which I work. Make that illegal and companies can no longer do "defensive" patenting. When I leave the company the patents go with me. Individuals inovate - not companies.
Better than having less children: wait until you are 35+ years old to have kids. Spreading the generations out does just as much as having less kids. That and the fact that if you wait to have kids your are likely to want less of them anyhow:)
Google is much easier and a lot less messy. Carbon in human body by weight: 18% Average weight 110 lbs (just a guess) * 6 billion people - I get 60 million tons carbon sequestered by humanity. We also help keep the sea levels from wiping out low lying areas: Water in human body: 75% by weight - I get 250 million tons. All joking aside, unfortunately these are paltry amounts compared with what we burn as oil , gas and coal every year.
Yeah, and do a back of the napkin calculation of how much carbon is tied up in the masses of humanity. Couple pounds carbon per human times 6 billion of us. So, go make babies to do your part to counter global warming:)
Just kidding. BTW I have no idea how much carbon there is in the average adult human.
But the problem is not with fission itself, but simply with the way fission power plants are regulated and administered
Even if the Greens or Libertarians or whatever got in I'd still be nervous without serious reins on both nuclear power and genetic engineering. It may be that the probability of disaster is very low but the possible consequences are very high. Given the historical evidence for humans to make short sighted, selfish and even mean spirited choices I think that extreme controls are needed when the stakes are so high. With genetically engineered foods I find it unacceptable that labeling is not required. A fundamental tenet of free market capitalism is that high quality information must be available to the economic entities making market choices. Keeping the genetic engineering status of foods hidden from the consumer is to disable the consumer from making a responsible choice.
Yeah, my Mom lives in the Cooks - I'll have to ask her about getting wierd calls. I still don't understand how someone external to the phone company can make a buck off of this. BTW I grew up (in Raro) with the old crank telephones with party lines. No way to do a scam with that level of technology!
How about an enzyme that is distributed through the air? Had a problem with our class C diesel RV where diesel sprayed onto the floor of the cab. Yuk. To get rid of the diesel smell I tried a product called clenair. The stuff is a solid that evaporates (sublimes?) over time and destroys odors. Seems to have worked very well with only a hint of diesel smell left after a month. Might be worth a try.
If by "safe speeds" you mean they have from location and speed information determined that you where speeding and thereby breaking the law why would you consider that to be abuse? If the posted speeds are unreasonably slow then get involved in local politics to have them changed. Living in a rural area with the typical speed limit being 35 mph poses an interesting conundrum. On open roads as a driver doing 45-50 feels perfectly safe but as a pedestrian or bicyclist an auto blasting by at that speed seems very dangerous. I both drive, walk and bicycle on the roads and would love to see the speed limit enforced but in sections where it is safe I've broken the law and sped. If a black box helped make enforcing that speed limit afordable (i.e. more enforcement without hiring more police) then that'd be great. If the speed limit was rigourously enforced maybe the drivers frustrated by putting along at 35 would be more supportive of sidewalks and bike paths.
It is defending your patent and doing the prior art research that costs so much. Nevertheless I admit that $50k is a gross exageration. Still, I'm pretty leery about trusting $$ to the patent system as an individual inventor.
Fair enough. Being of a "georgist" bent I tend to agree with you BUT do a little thought experiment about ideas and human behaviour and I think you would conclude that patents have a useful social engineering role to play. Most folks have some degree of self interest in their personality. If you or I have a good idea that has potential to be turned into a profitable product or service we are likely to want to capitalize on that idea. Without the protection of patents we are faced with bringing our product or service to market and watching others, perhaps with more resources, incorporate that idea causing us to end up with perhaps nothing OR keeping the idea a secret. With an EFFECTIVE patent system we can make good use of the idea or licence it to someone else without fear of losing out to someone else. I think the basic idea of a patent is beneficial to society regardless of how ideally you are right in saying that the idea belongs to all.
That said, the current patent system does NOT achieve the goals I mentioned above. In fact I personally have a couple of ideas that I believe are quite valuable but I'm damned if I'm going to share them 'cuz I won't ever see a cent from implementing them and I'm damned if I'll patent them 'cuz I'd spend $50k in the process and never get my money back. So... I'm gonna die with my ideas and to hell with the Human race.:-) just kidding. BTW: plug for Georgist ideas: http://henry-george.org.
I'm sure someone will be adding their favorite politician to this thread but seriously - I'd put money that there will be some consequences to not having a pulse. Valves will not get the exercise they need or something. N million years of evolution (or 7 days of design if that is what you buy into) means that there are probably lots of subtle interdepenancies of a pulsating blood supply. Of course some of the consequences might well be good...
I'm older also - the one lense free correction system I'm considering is corneal refractive therapy where you where contact lenses at night that reshape your eyes for the day. For me it is a risk consequences thing. Yeah the risk is low but damn those consequences can be high!
Now there's a site for sore eyes! (yuk, yuk). I haven't seen the green phosphor thing in a long time. Funny timing on this though. Over the weekend I was needing to do some spice simulation and I needed some models. After compiling tclspice (never did get the tcl part to work), apt-getting gschem, gwave etc. I googled for and downloaded some free models off the web. Some of them were dos exe files and an apt-get install dosemu and in seconds I had extracted the files. Both nostalgic and impressive. I didn't try the pspice.exe demo, now that would be impressive if it worked. Please pardon the lame sales attempt in the sig...
The SUV syndrome is mob mentality at its utter finest. "If no-body else is going to stop driving SUV's, why should I stop" is really one of the biggest problems with this issue, a typical Consumerican viewpoint, derived directly from the callous mob mentality currently perpetuated by "consumerist" ideals.
SUV owners are subject to supply and demand just like anyone else. As gas prices go up demand for SUV's will drop. I think I read somewhere that it is already happening. Do we need nuclear energy? Well... define "need". In my opinion "The Great Transition" [away from oil as a primary energy source] might be painful but the predictions of disaster are greatly overblown. Between belt tightening and alternative sources I think we can make it. As for global warming, again, the "new" environment will be different, it will suck in some ways and be better in others. Lastly, in all of this, the simplest and most powerful solution for making a transition is almost never mentioned. Tax oil (BEFORE refining). Try this thought experiment. Tax oil. Consumption goes down (supply/demand etc.). Competing suppliers respond with lower prices barrel prices in an attempt to keep market share. We (as a nation) effectively pay *less* for our oil AND our consumption rate decreases AND new markets are created for energy effiency AND alternative sources of energy become more attractive AND greenhouse gas emmisions decrease.
Ya think? Yea, it's called stealing a copy of the program, running your essay through it to see what it doesn't like, and continue to tweak it until the program gives the essay an A. Submit essay for grading, rinse, repeat.
Write a genetic algorythm script to generate papers using the test evaluation program as a fitness test. Would be facinating me thinks.
I'm glad they aren't armed here (Vermont) since they outnumber us humans two to one. I was just out with my crossbow (cheapy $90 120lb) but didn't get a good shot. I got a couple of huge ones last summer. We are loosing trees and our road is at risk of being washed away if the dam breaks. Called the game warden last year to ask what we could do, his answer: "Shoot 'em!". I love the contrast: shooting at nuisance wildlife at 5:30am and designing digital circuitry by 8:30am... I bet it is even better in parts of Canada in that regard.
I had a similar problem, an email address that was plunked in various spots thoughout the web. I installed Active Spam Killer (sourceforge.net/projects/a-s-k) and I no longer get spam. There are some minor hassles to using it but my email is generally useful again. Now my wife and daughter are asking me to set it up for them (yeah, yeah, I'll get around to it...). Anyway, highly recommened, almost zero maintenance load after setup which is admittedly some work.
Slashdot Mirror
Simple economics in my opinion. Boils down to taxes. We tax labor and that screws up the economic system and pushes all but a lucky few into a form of indentured servitude we call "getting a job". The solution? Easy, don't tax labor, tax something else, the best alternative is to tax land and natural resources. Lots more detail at http://www.henrygeorge.org and other sites.
Hey! Thanks for the pointers, my 11 yr old son is curious about programming games and these are an interesting example of an easy way to start.
I have about 10-20 wierd "words" I munge and cycle through for passwords. Policy is now 90 day passwords. Yeesh. Too burdensome as far as I'm concerned but you gotta do what you gotta do. I am waiting with bated breath for the day when computers are smart enough to recognise you by sight, sound and scent. "I'm sorry Bob, please run around the building twice and then attempt to log in again, your scent levels are too low for a positive id."
Well, someone has probably already pointed this out but the openembedded.org build system is kinda similar to gentoo in a way. Personally I'd like to see a rubyx or gentoo marriage with openembedded so that developing for embedded devices (a cheap old ipaq H3650 in my case) and keeping the software up to date is made easier. Note that although it is technically feasible to compile on the ipaq cross compiling is orders of magnetude faster and thus worth the setup pain IMHO.
Oh, and to qualify my comment: I'm a wannabe developer, I still haven't gotten an oe build for my iPAQ that I'm happy with.
Someone else (I can't remember who) suggested that the price of immortality should be sterilisation
Nah, let people live as long as they want, BUT - as soon as they have kids they get signed up for dying in say 50 years.
I don't have mod points or I'd mod up the parent.
Look, the moment we think that we are powerless then, sure as s*it, we are powerless. Come on people, fight! Quit pointing fingers, choose an action and do it. I believe that there are still enough checks and balances in the system that a difference can be made. Oh, btw, if you don't particularly want to do the work yourself, find an organisation that is working on the problem and give them a few bucks.
Again, another counter argument can be made. When determining 'the cost' to business, what does cost actually mean. Is it more costly to a single business, when there idea is not patentable? Is it more costly to business as a whole, where they are excluded from using a patented method?
Who cares how much it costs to implement? There are existing mechanisms for protecting implementations! I've never seen the code that Amazon uses for their "one click" stuff. They keep it a secret and that is fine. The fundamental question is - would Amazon have chosen to *not* implement the "one click" idea in the absence of patents? The answer is of course not. The "one click" would (presumably) be attractive to customers and we know that the cost of implementation is minimal. No patent protection is needed because there is every reason to implement (irregardless of lack of patent protection) and no reason to not implement! Patenting business ideas does not benefit society as a whole because business ideas are a dime a dozen and the value is in the implementation which is protected by existing law.
I'd like to see proponents of business patents come up with an example of a business idea or method where there is a risk of that idea being kept secret or not implemented due to fear that someone else will take the idea and be more sucessful.
Your likelihood of getting a patent now may have less to do with how good or novel the design or process is, and more to do with how many lawyers you can afford.
Which brings to mind the thought that if patents could only be held by individuals some of these issues would become moot. If I patent something it automatically belongs to the Corp. for which I work. Make that illegal and companies can no longer do "defensive" patenting. When I leave the company the patents go with me. Individuals inovate - not companies.
Better than having less children: wait until you are 35+ years old to have kids. Spreading the generations out does just as much as having less kids. That and the fact that if you wait to have kids your are likely to want less of them anyhow :)
Google is much easier and a lot less messy. Carbon in human body by weight: 18% Average weight 110 lbs (just a guess) * 6 billion people - I get 60 million tons carbon sequestered by humanity. We also help keep the sea levels from wiping out low lying areas: Water in human body: 75% by weight - I get 250 million tons. All joking aside, unfortunately these are paltry amounts compared with what we burn as oil , gas and coal every year.
Yeah, and do a back of the napkin calculation of how much carbon is tied up in the masses of humanity. Couple pounds carbon per human times 6 billion of us. So, go make babies to do your part to counter global warming :)
Just kidding. BTW I have no idea how much carbon there is in the average adult human.
But the problem is not with fission itself, but simply with the way fission power plants are regulated and administered
Even if the Greens or Libertarians or whatever got in I'd still be nervous without serious reins on both nuclear power and genetic engineering. It may be that the probability of disaster is very low but the possible consequences are very high. Given the historical evidence for humans to make short sighted, selfish and even mean spirited choices I think that extreme controls are needed when the stakes are so high.
With genetically engineered foods I find it unacceptable that labeling is not required. A fundamental tenet of free market capitalism is that high quality information must be available to the economic entities making market choices. Keeping the genetic engineering status of foods hidden from the consumer is to disable the consumer from making a responsible choice.
Yeah, my Mom lives in the Cooks - I'll have to ask her about getting wierd calls. I still don't understand how someone external to the phone company can make a buck off of this. BTW I grew up (in Raro) with the old crank telephones with party lines. No way to do a scam with that level of technology!
How about an enzyme that is distributed through the air? Had a problem with our class C diesel RV where diesel sprayed onto the floor of the cab. Yuk. To get rid of the diesel smell I tried a product called clenair. The stuff is a solid that evaporates (sublimes?) over time and destroys odors. Seems to have worked very well with only a hint of diesel smell left after a month. Might be worth a try.
If by "safe speeds" you mean they have from location and speed information determined that you where speeding and thereby breaking the law why would you consider that to be abuse? If the posted speeds are unreasonably slow then get involved in local politics to have them changed. Living in a rural area with the typical speed limit being 35 mph poses an interesting conundrum. On open roads as a driver doing 45-50 feels perfectly safe but as a pedestrian or bicyclist an auto blasting by at that speed seems very dangerous. I both drive, walk and bicycle on the roads and would love to see the speed limit enforced but in sections where it is safe I've broken the law and sped. If a black box helped make enforcing that speed limit afordable (i.e. more enforcement without hiring more police) then that'd be great. If the speed limit was rigourously enforced maybe the drivers frustrated by putting along at 35 would be more supportive of sidewalks and bike paths.
It is defending your patent and doing the prior art research that costs so much. Nevertheless I admit that $50k is a gross exageration. Still, I'm pretty leery about trusting $$ to the patent system as an individual inventor.
That said, the current patent system does NOT achieve the goals I mentioned above. In fact I personally have a couple of ideas that I believe are quite valuable but I'm damned if I'm going to share them 'cuz I won't ever see a cent from implementing them and I'm damned if I'll patent them 'cuz I'd spend $50k in the process and never get my money back. So... I'm gonna die with my ideas and to hell with the Human race. :-) just kidding.
BTW: plug for Georgist ideas: http://henry-george.org.
I'm sure someone will be adding their favorite politician to this thread but seriously - I'd put money that there will be some consequences to not having a pulse. Valves will not get the exercise they need or something. N million years of evolution (or 7 days of design if that is what you buy into) means that there are probably lots of subtle interdepenancies of a pulsating blood supply. Of course some of the consequences might well be good...
I'm older also - the one lense free correction system I'm considering is corneal refractive therapy where you where contact lenses at night that reshape your eyes for the day. For me it is a risk consequences thing. Yeah the risk is low but damn those consequences can be high!
Now there's a site for sore eyes! (yuk, yuk). I haven't seen the green phosphor thing in a long time. Funny timing on this though. Over the weekend I was needing to do some spice simulation and I needed some models. After compiling tclspice (never did get the tcl part to work), apt-getting gschem, gwave etc. I googled for and downloaded some free models off the web. Some of them were dos exe files and an apt-get install dosemu and in seconds I had extracted the files. Both nostalgic and impressive. I didn't try the pspice.exe demo, now that would be impressive if it worked. Please pardon the lame sales attempt in the sig...
The SUV syndrome is mob mentality at its utter finest. "If no-body else is going to stop driving SUV's, why should I stop" is really one of the biggest problems with this issue, a typical Consumerican viewpoint, derived directly from the callous mob mentality currently perpetuated by "consumerist" ideals .
SUV owners are subject to supply and demand just like anyone else. As gas prices go up demand for SUV's will drop. I think I read somewhere that it is already happening. Do we need nuclear energy? Well... define "need". In my opinion "The Great Transition" [away from oil as a primary energy source] might be painful but the predictions of disaster are greatly overblown. Between belt tightening and alternative sources I think we can make it. As for global warming, again, the "new" environment will be different, it will suck in some ways and be better in others. Lastly, in all of this, the simplest and most powerful solution for making a transition is almost never mentioned. Tax oil (BEFORE refining). Try this thought experiment. Tax oil. Consumption goes down (supply/demand etc.). Competing suppliers respond with lower prices barrel prices in an attempt to keep market share. We (as a nation) effectively pay *less* for our oil AND our consumption rate decreases AND new markets are created for energy effiency AND alternative sources of energy become more attractive AND greenhouse gas emmisions decrease.
Ya think? Yea, it's called stealing a copy of the program, running your essay through it to see what it doesn't like, and continue to tweak it until the program gives the essay an A. Submit essay for grading, rinse, repeat.
Write a genetic algorythm script to generate papers using the test evaluation program as a fitness test. Would be facinating me thinks.
I'm glad they aren't armed here (Vermont) since they outnumber us humans two to one. I was just out with my crossbow (cheapy $90 120lb) but didn't get a good shot. I got a couple of huge ones last summer. We are loosing trees and our road is at risk of being washed away if the dam breaks. Called the game warden last year to ask what we could do, his answer: "Shoot 'em!". I love the contrast: shooting at nuisance wildlife at 5:30am and designing digital circuitry by 8:30am... I bet it is even better in parts of Canada in that regard.
Yeah, its probably me :) how do you propose fixing the problem? If I quit using ASK I may as well delete my email address.
I had a similar problem, an email address that was plunked in various spots thoughout the web. I installed Active Spam Killer (sourceforge.net/projects/a-s-k) and I no longer get spam. There are some minor hassles to using it but my email is generally useful again. Now my wife and daughter are asking me to set it up for them (yeah, yeah, I'll get around to it...). Anyway, highly recommened, almost zero maintenance load after setup which is admittedly some work.