Topics are never "thoroughly figured out". What would have happened if researchers had simply dismissed quantum-level effects as experimental error, since Newtonian physics was "thoroughly figured out"? What would have happened if that idiot Copernicus had been properly silenced, because it was "thoroughly figured out" that the sun revolved around the Earth?
Yeah, creationism sounds stupid most of the ways it's presented, but I will always applaud people who question established scientific theories. Even if you have a thousand crackpots who tie their theory of creation into 9/11 and the JFK assassination, you'll have a couple who base their logic on real science - and maybe they'll discover something that makes *you* look stupid.
Owning part of the collective rights to something is not the same as having complete control over it. The purpose of those areas in federal buildings and military installations is only (or more easily) achievable if they restrict public access. The public still owns the building, but the public has also elected people who passed laws to designate areas as off-limits for the sake of efficiency and national safety.
Whether or not you or I agree with those access restrictions is an entirely different matter, and it doesn't affect our (collective) ownership of the facilities.
I made $200,000 one year on sales of a mobile app. The federal government took $78,000 of it, and state took several thousand more. That is close enough to half for my argument. Now I make $20,000 a year, and I have better health (and better health care coverage), less stress, and I hardly have to work for it. I won't lie, I'd like to make more money, but I just can't make myself try - it doesn't seem like the rewards outweigh the cost.
They will out-breed us and make us pay for it, because America is no longer about hard work to achieve your goals. This is what social programs do, people.
Why should I work my ass off to bring in six figures, when the government takes half of it? If I simply don't work hard, get an easy, mindless job and earn 20-30k a year, I'll get free food (food stamps) almost free housing (low income housing) and actually end up with MORE disposable income per month than I would have if I tried to actually rise above mediocrity.
Who would own the copyright? Most people seem to have forgotten that everything the government owns is public property - copyrighting something in the name of the public domain doesn't really have much effect. This is why you can request copies of any government documents (of course, they make you pay a fee, and they redact them, and take years, etc.). The only reason you don't always get the documents you request is if they've been deemed secret for reasons of "national security".
If you're going with the book analogy, it's more like copying a book vs. replacing the entire library catalog with an ICE warning card, in the off chance that SOME of the books are incompatible with ICE's views.
The underlying system itself may still work, despite the rampant corruption, but I wouldn't say "no one" is putting energy into it. I know many people who do their bit, try to educate their friends, vote smart, write their congressmen and senators. How can you say they're the reason the system is failing?
The system is failing because there aren't *enough people* putting energy into it. The few who do aren't enough to outweigh the many who don't, and that's the problem.
Unless something seriously changes, I don't think there will ever be enough concerned citizens to make it work.
That is the problem. The knowledgeable, intelligent minority can't effect change because the apathetic, easily-swayed majority is content to vote (or not vote) however the TV tells them to. Politicians will campaign on one platform and vote completely differently once they're elected - case in point, Obama, and I seem to remember the majority of Slashdot cheering him as the savior of the internet.
The point is, the political system can be gamed with relative ease by those already in power. American society has reached the point where you and I *can't* change the government through normal channels.
If there was regulation, it wouldn't stop with spam. How long would it be before your traffic was deemed a nuisance?
I remember back when BlueFrog was dealing with spam. They had the worldwide volume of spam down by 75%, simply by channeling the collective rage of the spammers' victims. An unethical minority can't stand up to the collective hatred of a large majority - something that's bad for minority viewpoints on the internet, but not a death sentence. Apathy helps keep down censorship by the majority - it's things like spam that cause outrage, and outrage causes action.
They don't have to know what you're transmitting. All they have to know is that they *don't* know what you're transmitting, and that you're transmitting a lot of this "unknown" stuff. Then they throttle you down to 5kbps.
Does ending a news post with a provocative yet insubstantial question guarantee its success? Do all recent Slashdot stories seem to end this way? Find out, right after the break.
Yeah, the requirements for stage/concert illumination are pretty intense, and I understand why those design considerations keep the price high. As I said, I'm excited about the code! I'd just benefit a lot more from something that costs $6 and runs over a CAN bus.
The LED strips need to be able to have each LED (or small set) controlled individually, for light shows, so my focus has to be on extremely cheap controllers and cost-effective LEDs. I'll definitely check out the development lists - maybe someone will have suggestions for me. Thanks for the response!
"Honestly, I'm not sure why this is such a big deal - it's as if we (African-Americans) think we have a God-given right to ride at the front of the bus. Yet in everyday life, we must give up certain liberties; when I'm driving on public roads, I don't have the right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure by over-zealous law enforcement. But that's OK, because I voluntarily put myself on a bus, or on a public road."
The government doesn't give us rights. We have the rights inherently. Just because the government says driving on roads that I payed for isn't a right, doesn't mean their position is legally sound. Their unreasonable search and seizure of persons and property at airports is outright illegal under the Constitution. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it. The reason it continues is that nobody in power will prosecute them, and courts won't hear criminal cases brought by the general public.
"Congressman Ron Paul lashed out at the TSA yesterday and introduced a bill aimed at stopping federal abuse of passengers. Paul’s proposed legislation would pave the way for TSA employees to be sued for feeling up Americans and putting them through unsafe naked body scanners."
It's as bright as one standard 60-watt incandescent light bulb.
There are plenty of flashlights that put out 800 lumens - for example, the UltraFire WF-016 SSC-P7 is an LED flashlight that costs $30 and puts out 800 lumens.
The code looks useful, but I'm getting paid $14 an hour. If I want to build RGB mood lighting for my house, I'm going to need a lot more than one unit. I can get 20 feet of RGB strip for $200, and they want $350 for a little 800-lumen flashlight board.
Without doing anything? I've voted for write-in candidates, gotten involved with grassroots campaigning, etc. None of it matters, because at some point it's no longer within OUR control.
When there's a majority of the population that doesn't care, won't care, and will just hate you if you try to reason with them, what do you suggest we do? It's a lose-lose situation.
You say our current state is a result of us "allowing other people to make it this way". Last I checked, we didn't have a choice! We did the right things, we voted, we warned people, we called and wrote our senators, and for what? It got worse!
I think it's time to stop blaming ourselves for this, (unless you voted partisan in the elections) and focus on blaming the mass apathy that afflicts the consumer middle class. We can dig all we want to, but I'm beginning to think there'll always be twice as many people filling the hole back in.
It's not a monarchy, but it has become an oligarchy. With a population this large, way above subsistence level, catering to the bored, uninterested middle class will buy any politician an elected office.
Do the majority of people actually bother to even read the voting guides, or do they just listen to the smear campaigns that interrupt their favorite sitcom?
It's the same problem they had with Rome - past a certain point, it becomes bread and circuses, and I don't know of a civilization that's come back from that point.
Slashdot Mirror
Topics are never "thoroughly figured out". What would have happened if researchers had simply dismissed quantum-level effects as experimental error, since Newtonian physics was "thoroughly figured out"? What would have happened if that idiot Copernicus had been properly silenced, because it was "thoroughly figured out" that the sun revolved around the Earth?
Yeah, creationism sounds stupid most of the ways it's presented, but I will always applaud people who question established scientific theories. Even if you have a thousand crackpots who tie their theory of creation into 9/11 and the JFK assassination, you'll have a couple who base their logic on real science - and maybe they'll discover something that makes *you* look stupid.
Owning part of the collective rights to something is not the same as having complete control over it. The purpose of those areas in federal buildings and military installations is only (or more easily) achievable if they restrict public access. The public still owns the building, but the public has also elected people who passed laws to designate areas as off-limits for the sake of efficiency and national safety.
Whether or not you or I agree with those access restrictions is an entirely different matter, and it doesn't affect our (collective) ownership of the facilities.
I made $200,000 one year on sales of a mobile app. The federal government took $78,000 of it, and state took several thousand more. That is close enough to half for my argument. Now I make $20,000 a year, and I have better health (and better health care coverage), less stress, and I hardly have to work for it. I won't lie, I'd like to make more money, but I just can't make myself try - it doesn't seem like the rewards outweigh the cost.
The only science fairs I've seen these days have a list of projects the kids can do. "Different" or "unique" isn't even on the table.
Why should I work my ass off to bring in six figures, when the government takes half of it? If I simply don't work hard, get an easy, mindless job and earn 20-30k a year, I'll get free food (food stamps) almost free housing (low income housing) and actually end up with MORE disposable income per month than I would have if I tried to actually rise above mediocrity.
Who would own the copyright? Most people seem to have forgotten that everything the government owns is public property - copyrighting something in the name of the public domain doesn't really have much effect. This is why you can request copies of any government documents (of course, they make you pay a fee, and they redact them, and take years, etc.). The only reason you don't always get the documents you request is if they've been deemed secret for reasons of "national security".
If you're going with the book analogy, it's more like copying a book vs. replacing the entire library catalog with an ICE warning card, in the off chance that SOME of the books are incompatible with ICE's views.
Too late, it's on now...
The underlying system itself may still work, despite the rampant corruption, but I wouldn't say "no one" is putting energy into it. I know many people who do their bit, try to educate their friends, vote smart, write their congressmen and senators. How can you say they're the reason the system is failing?
The system is failing because there aren't *enough people* putting energy into it. The few who do aren't enough to outweigh the many who don't, and that's the problem.
Unless something seriously changes, I don't think there will ever be enough concerned citizens to make it work.
That is the problem. The knowledgeable, intelligent minority can't effect change because the apathetic, easily-swayed majority is content to vote (or not vote) however the TV tells them to. Politicians will campaign on one platform and vote completely differently once they're elected - case in point, Obama, and I seem to remember the majority of Slashdot cheering him as the savior of the internet.
The point is, the political system can be gamed with relative ease by those already in power. American society has reached the point where you and I *can't* change the government through normal channels.
The problem is, those two are mutually exclusive...
Throttling.
If there was regulation, it wouldn't stop with spam. How long would it be before your traffic was deemed a nuisance?
I remember back when BlueFrog was dealing with spam. They had the worldwide volume of spam down by 75%, simply by channeling the collective rage of the spammers' victims. An unethical minority can't stand up to the collective hatred of a large majority - something that's bad for minority viewpoints on the internet, but not a death sentence. Apathy helps keep down censorship by the majority - it's things like spam that cause outrage, and outrage causes action.
They don't have to know what you're transmitting. All they have to know is that they *don't* know what you're transmitting, and that you're transmitting a lot of this "unknown" stuff. Then they throttle you down to 5kbps.
Does ending a news post with a provocative yet insubstantial question guarantee its success? Do all recent Slashdot stories seem to end this way? Find out, right after the break.
+1
My eyes are bleeding
Yeah, the requirements for stage/concert illumination are pretty intense, and I understand why those design considerations keep the price high. As I said, I'm excited about the code! I'd just benefit a lot more from something that costs $6 and runs over a CAN bus.
The LED strips need to be able to have each LED (or small set) controlled individually, for light shows, so my focus has to be on extremely cheap controllers and cost-effective LEDs. I'll definitely check out the development lists - maybe someone will have suggestions for me. Thanks for the response!
"Honestly, I'm not sure why this is such a big deal - it's as if we (African-Americans) think we have a God-given right to ride at the front of the bus. Yet in everyday life, we must give up certain liberties; when I'm driving on public roads, I don't have the right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure by over-zealous law enforcement. But that's OK, because I voluntarily put myself on a bus, or on a public road."
The government doesn't give us rights. We have the rights inherently. Just because the government says driving on roads that I payed for isn't a right, doesn't mean their position is legally sound. Their unreasonable search and seizure of persons and property at airports is outright illegal under the Constitution. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it. The reason it continues is that nobody in power will prosecute them, and courts won't hear criminal cases brought by the general public.
"Congressman Ron Paul lashed out at the TSA yesterday and introduced a bill aimed at stopping federal abuse of passengers. Paul’s proposed legislation would pave the way for TSA employees to be sued for feeling up Americans and putting them through unsafe naked body scanners."
Get that man a Klondike bar!
It's as bright as one standard 60-watt incandescent light bulb.
There are plenty of flashlights that put out 800 lumens - for example, the UltraFire WF-016 SSC-P7 is an LED flashlight that costs $30 and puts out 800 lumens.
... when this costs less than $800 per unit.
The code looks useful, but I'm getting paid $14 an hour. If I want to build RGB mood lighting for my house, I'm going to need a lot more than one unit. I can get 20 feet of RGB strip for $200, and they want $350 for a little 800-lumen flashlight board.
Dude, RELAXEN
Without doing anything? I've voted for write-in candidates, gotten involved with grassroots campaigning, etc. None of it matters, because at some point it's no longer within OUR control.
When there's a majority of the population that doesn't care, won't care, and will just hate you if you try to reason with them, what do you suggest we do? It's a lose-lose situation.
You say our current state is a result of us "allowing other people to make it this way". Last I checked, we didn't have a choice! We did the right things, we voted, we warned people, we called and wrote our senators, and for what? It got worse!
I think it's time to stop blaming ourselves for this, (unless you voted partisan in the elections) and focus on blaming the mass apathy that afflicts the consumer middle class. We can dig all we want to, but I'm beginning to think there'll always be twice as many people filling the hole back in.
It's not a monarchy, but it has become an oligarchy. With a population this large, way above subsistence level, catering to the bored, uninterested middle class will buy any politician an elected office.
Do the majority of people actually bother to even read the voting guides, or do they just listen to the smear campaigns that interrupt their favorite sitcom?
It's the same problem they had with Rome - past a certain point, it becomes bread and circuses, and I don't know of a civilization that's come back from that point.