I have one of those... and it is good as an icebreaker (well, sometimes)... but traditionally I wear my $9 Wal Mart timepiece (analog) because it's not a crime if I lose it or scratch the face of it.
It's a flexible band, so I can wear it easily on either wrist (left-handed geek here.)
There also was a Fossil watch a while back that had the cascading "matrix code" in the background. I could kick myself for not getting one because, like the Binary watch... it's just geeky enough not to look like I'm wearing a PDA on my arm...
I have found it very easy to avoid malware on my android phone. Most apps that seem fishy are pretty obvious, and I pay attention to what the app wants to be able to do as for as permissions go. If an app needs more permissions than I'm willing to give, then I generally don't bother. I have a few free apps that are ad supported... and I generally don't go trolling for sex and fart apps (as has been mentioned elsewhere in this discussion...)
Yes, openness has its drawbacks. But like Jefferson said... (paraphrasing) "I would rather have dangerous liberty than safe servitude." Some people are fine being pawns of Apple, Microsoft and the like. Others aren't. If everyone thought as most./ users, there'd be no iPhone because it would've died on the vine. Diversity is what it is...
That doesn't make them any more correct that because they're locked down and restricted, that somehow they're better off... just less free.
What puzzled me from TFA was just how they determined which swarms to poison. I suspect the trackers helped them, but I guess I don't know enough about BitTorrent to understand magnet links.
More simply, at what time do they determine it's copyrighted material? I wonder if their new-fangled software solution is going to get caught by false positives? The next time I'm downloading a GParted ISO via bittorrent, I don't want the "Pirate Pay" folks screwing with my torrent on accident. I could give two shits about movie torrents or music torrents (it's not worth pirating OR paying for)... so I would hope these Russians have not overlooked the little fact that there are legitimate torrents out there, and that screwing with them will make things worse... (and blow their credibility out of the water...) The idea is all a bit silly, considering the content industry's revenue has hit record levels... all while they are telling the politicians and ignorant public that they're hanging on by a thread.:)
Yeah... okay. Sure we believe you're sincere.... sincerely crazy.
Good point, though Adobe's gone one step further... Microsoft ends "mainstream" support fairly consistently (and longer than Adobe, to be sure), but extended support is not so bad (XP will be dead to the world in 2014).... I'll keep my XP machine running until it dies of old age (gotta play all my old games and the machine's woefully underpowered for Win 7.... heh.)
So in Adobe's case, they support only the current version, it seems... no patches.. gotta upgrade for those. If they offer free patches to other problems with CS 5.5, and this one is so systemic they had to rewrite it for CS 6.. makes you wonder who's running QC there at Adobe.
As the United Kingdom did (well hell, most of Europe) did a couple of centuries ago... Then if you really want to go back a bit farther, the Romans, the Greeks, the Persians, the Hittites, the Assyrians... well... you get the picture.
Is it ethical? No, not really. And as we've evolved as a planet, the justifications put forth for such meddling have been revised to the point of oddity. First it was "to bring others under the benevolent rule of X" (X being whatever empire was in charge at the time)... then it was "to bring civilization to the uncivilized, and grow the mighty and right-sided X" (Empire or country, take your pick.) Then it was "to bring democracy to a hurting and backward people"... and somewhere in between it was "to bring the one true religion of X to the savages and barbarians..." (Not just Christianity, mind you... Islam, Zoroastrianism... you name it... they wanted to export it.)
So while the US (and Europe's) meddling in the Middle East (let's not forget what the European nations did to the Middle East after WW1 and WW2) is just rotten to those on the opposite end of the stick, it's not the first time, nor will it be the last time... the fact that people seem to forget 80 years ago, makes you wonder why Al Qaeda isn't hell-bent on toppling all of Europe for their "crimes against Islam" after the last two great wars. (Hint: it's because there's no righteous anger... it's all about money and power.) "Praise Allah" is another phrase for "I'm tired of the West getting all the cash and luxury."
I'm a cynic and a realist. I don't pretend to believe that the US is a benevolent wondrous example of how to be a nation. It just happens to be my nation... and I forgive it more than I forgive other nations. (And wouldn't you know it? That's usually what happens in every other country.):)
Now Snow Leopard is free to users who want to transition from MobileMe to iCloud:)
But yes, Apple's OS hasn't been too rigorous in checking what it was installing to. A nice feature compared to the Inquisition that is Microsoft OS installs.
Unfortunately they did it to themselves. They refused to adapt to new technology, and as a result, they're playing whack-a-mole with legislation and treaties that do nothing for the widespread bootlegging in emerging markets. Instead of finding a way to monetize that and keep happy customers, they try to squeeze those of us who do pay and do play by the rules as if we're just "on the verge of being a dirty pirate" because we embrace technology and have an mp3 player and computer. (Really, is the Ukraine really a market where you want to charge $20 for a DVD? Where'd these idiots go to business school?)
I used to feel a tinge of guilt when someone put up on a torrent a cammed version of a movie... now I just don't care. When I buy now, I buy used, since most of the movies I want to see are either out of print or not available in my region (as stupid as that sounds, why can't we get the Japanese versions of ALL the Godzilla movies, hmm? What the hell are they doing that keeps a "US version" and a "Japanese version" in separate regions? Not all Godzilla movies feature Raymond Burr to mask the nuclear holocaust warnings the originals had.):)
Anyway, I'm rambling. I like the Amazon mp3 store... there are some good sales and some great free compilations to get without DRM. Why is it movies and TV shows (that are broadcast without cost to the viewer) held under a lock and key that rivals the CDC's ebola wing? Because the people in charge are stupid. The people in charge of the government are stupid. The people electing them are stupid. The people running multinational corporations are stupid. The media conglomerates are chock full of stupid. Hell, the Justice Department is full of ex-media lawyers and RIAA goons for fuck's sake, what do we expect?
I am done with movie theaters. I am done with new DVDs. If I can get it used, it's not worth watching. It costs less, and it doesn't give those rat bastards a penny who are fucking our technological lead in the ass. Honestly, this is all over something they could've solved 10 YEARS ago instead of litigating the planet into a cesspool of bullshit and draconian laws that outlaw everything this side of whistling. And by FSM, when they find a way to do that, you KNOW they will. Fuck lawyers, politicians, actors, and CEOs in the ass with big rubber dicks.
I guess I am cynical, but I am tired of hearing their excuses... and I am tired of the lack of respect for the Public Domain (the very thing that made Disney billions....) Eh. I hope they all go bankrupt and take about 90% of the overpaid actors/actresses with them. Oh, and could someone please for the love of FSM, NUKE Barbara Streisand from orbit? It's the only way to be sure.
...and your point is? Knives kill thousands a year. Hell, lightning kills hundreds. Poisonous chemicals kill thousands a year in accidental ingestion incidents. Children are killed by opening pill bottles and overdosing.
The tests most states (yes, there are states that let you pay the fee, get fingerprinted, and carry) have for CHL's are pretty rigorous. Much more than the 4 minute multiple choice exam and trip around the neighborhood with officer Dan. You have to be able to shoot... you have to be able to care for your gun and you also have to know EXACTLY when deadly force is allowed and when it is not, and the laws governing that information.
The 2nd Amendment is clear. Yes, I sound like a broken record, but people seem to miss this vital point. Yet they will defend the 1st Amendment to the death... we can't pick and choose our rights... we are born with them. You can choose not to exercise your 2nd Amendment right and I will support you just as I would if you chose to exercise that right.
No you have to be licensed in Florida too. They fingerprint you and charge you for the license. You're in the system. Why would anyone think that is terrible? Sure, they need to be more proactive in teaching law and conflict resolution (Texas has both in its CHL), but it's not like Dodge City Kansas 1879....
The 2nd Amendment is pretty clear, and the Supreme Court upheld that it is an individual right just like the 1st Amendment.
There are actually places in America where its illegal to NOT have a gun.
Please tell me where this is. I think I'd like to live there. I've heard Alabama, but I've not found corroborating evidence to make that more than speculation.
There are actually places there where you can LEGALLY walk around with a concealed firearm.
Yes, in quite a few states. But you must first pass a rigorous test and are still held ultimately responsible for murder if you use too much force in a situation, not to mention the fact that the test weeds out quite a few people (shooting qualifications that is.) A concealed carry permit holder knows more about gun laws and the criminal code after taking the course than most of the general population does. But I can see where it might frighten you to know someone MIGHT be carrying something you don't know about... chicklets... breath mints, hot sauce packets from Taco Bell....
There are two fundamental freedoms that you can never take away from an American; The right to shoot people to death, and the right to praise the *LORD* Jesus almighty, hallelujah !
Yes. Those are from the 1st and 2nd amendments to our Constitution. Shows you've been reading.
Sheriffs are political positions. Some states elect judges, but most are appointed, and they are all appointed at the federal level.
So, if you think a Sheriff is a "justice official", I have some coastal property in Nebraska that has YOU in mind... maybe a villa or some sort of summer home perhaps?
I'm not a Libertarian, I'm a libertarian. Yes, Hong Kong isn't perfect... I've said that before. And no, it's not the shining example on the hill. It has the elements of a free market, but it, like everything else, is not a free market in the sense that I think we are capable of. Everyone who says "Free market" isn't a kook. But I can safely say that the cronyism and legislation (and selective application of regulation based on who pays the most) is bad enough that we need something else. We don't need more of the same, and we can't very well eliminate everything that decades of this system has wrought. We can come close, and we can enforce equality through the adherence to the Constitution.. Something the British Empire never had...
And I think you forgot about the entire British Empire as a cesspool of extortion, bribery, and violence (India... just to name one). Just because Hong Kong was a "wild west" market with British help (like I said before, not a true free market.. but closer than we've ever been in the US or Europe), doesn't make everyone who is for a free market somehow ignorant of history and somehow a kook. History has taught you enough to realize the current system is what you explain in your first sentence... the only difference is that lawyers and lobbyists are the mercenaries. And FAR worse, because they legislate and make legal all the things that will bring down our personal liberty. At least you can shoot mercenaries.
I think we can agree that nothing we have has worked. We haven't "de-regulated" squat in the US... we've created artificial oligarchies for those companies who paid for the "De-regulation". (Texas power, California power, banks... etc.) All "De-regulation" has done is eliminate some of the paperwork necessary to get what the cronies already were promised. It's not about freeing markets... it's about unleashing the titans against those who oppose them in the market. Something an adherence to the Constitution would fix if only we hadn't thought "there oughta be a law" every time something fucked up. AT&T, Cable, Big Content... consolidation of banks... all "de-regulated" to the point of serving those in power with piles of money. Nothing free about that, unless you're the one getting the cash.
We've seen what a subservient role to a government unshackled by constraints can do. We see many places trying to move away from it (even the vaunted nanny states of Europe) and yet we have the same voices claiming the same nonsense about "Fair" and "regulatory matters" as if they are speaking something new. It's not new... but we keep electing the idiots here in the US as if it were.
It's indeed funny that we have the exact problem you say a free market would have right now. We are at the mercy of the tyranny of the rich and strongest. They got that way through manipulating the regulatory arm you cling to. A Free Market has nothing to do with anarchy. A free market is only an ideal because we can't wrap our heads around what it means. People always want to qualify a free market with an "if" or a "but"... We have had a sufficiently stable government for centuries that has done nothing but grow larger, more invasive and regulatory and yet we have as corrupt a system as you could possibly dream up for a free market. Government subsidies for farms, kickbacks for "oil exploration", and sweetheart deals for this or that. The internet is a prime example of a free market style idea growing out of a military project. If it weren't for those original people, we'd still have ARPANET and MILNET. Sure some of the biggest seeds came out of academia, but the internet only went so far through those channels. Now the government wants in on the profits, and we see SOPA/PIPA and the corporatist goons trying to legislate their way to the top of the market.
Cable television was a free market idea, and then it got sucked into regulatory contracts, government sponsored monopolies and government copyright/trademark hell... considering the fact that the internet is suffering from the same problem, I can see we share the same fear.:) But my fear is from the over-regulated consequences of the old guard buying their influence so the new guard cannot enter. Like I said earlier, we have a "dog eat dog" system... it just has a smaller cadre of "dogs" eating the rest of us.
As for Hong Kong, the British rode it by not enforcing any of the old world government shackles they were stuck with in their own country... and China hasn't changed that much, in spite of being very capable of turning anything into a government-run institution. It's not perfect, but Hong Kong is the closest to a free market we can get with the current cronyism that plagues western civilization.
With the current system of government and payola, which would try to occur in a free market, the market would be well able to handle it. While company A was greasing a politician, company B would swoop in and take the market away from them. But we can't have that when the government actually prevents company B from offering a product that company A is unwilling to sell or unwilling to move on price... because Company A squelches competition through "regulatory framework" or a completely fucked up copyright and patent system. The government should be the arbiter of disputes between participants in the market, and should enforce liberty and property protections that the Constitution enumerates... it should not control markets and prop up campaign donors with new laws designed to screw the little guy and keep the money flowing back to them. That is why we won't have a free market. That is why we can't have one.
None have tried. Free Energy is a joke, a free market is something that COULD exist. And yes, politicians who say anything about free markets are full of shit. If more people realized that, perhaps things would be better. Of course, a close proximity to a free market (as best as we can see these days) is Hong Kong (both pre and post handover...) It's not surprising that China wouldn't change much of how Hong Kong worked after Britain handed it over.... (We'll see how long that lasts of course...)
But you are incorrect in thinking a free market is a myth. It's more of an ideal, and those who don't believe in it or who cannot operate in it make sure we never reach that ideal... unlike free energy where someone is selling you a line of shit for a price....
Good points... and quite frankly we see analogies of this as progress marches on in many industries. I don't think the oft-cited "buggy whip cartel" is in a tizzy since we went to those new-fangled horseless carriages.:) I do remember from history class vast swaths of those in power who wanted to suppress the printing press. It ruined their hold on the masses if moveable type got the message out.:) Of course parallels can be drawn today regarding the content industry's loosening grip on society and the democratization of technology. Is it always clean and neat? No, the printing press had the European book producers in a tizzy.... with knockoff versions of their books appearing on street corners.... It's not always pretty either. We've seen the lengths to which Big Content will go to keep their status quo, but like every other industry that has tried (even with government help sometimes)... they have all either adapted or died.
These dinosaurs are at a crossroads, though. Adaptation or oblivion. They have the power to choose. They do not however have the power to keep things as they are. Trying to stop progress is like trying to stop the earth from rotating. Best of luck with that, even with all the draconian laws and attempts to silence the future...
I think you're missing the point of conflict of interest. A conflict of interest is something that will keep you from being impartial, like a judge getting money from the RIAA ruling on the DeCSS case. Since PJ just puts up an editorial blog and shows the SCO case against Linux is bullshit, she is not influencing anything or tainting the impartiality of a proceeding by doing so. She is not involved in the case with Oracle v. Google. She was not involved in the SCO case either. The fact that the courts agreed SCO was full of shit had nothing to do with groklaw or PJ.
Now, if by some reasoning we can say "well PJ has bias because she gets her hosting from IBM"... okay, then that's fine and dandy, but unlike Florian who would argue the sky was orange if someone from FOSS said it was blue, PJ keeps her bias up front. Knowing this, her facts are correct. They are facts colored with the language of someone who hates SCO/Oracle, but they are facts nonetheless.
So in short, a conflict of interest would need to be disclosed if there was something to gain or lose by that interest from either party involved in the proceeding. Since PJ was just an observer, there was no conflict of interest. SCO didn't lose the case because of groklaw... it lost the case because it was full of shit and trolling. It got caught doing so and was spanked out of existence, in SPITE of cash from Microsoft...
Bias != conflict of interest. and Florian has only a bias because even though he's paid by Oracle and Microsoft, his comments on groklaw do not influence proceedings.
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I have one of those... and it is good as an icebreaker (well, sometimes)... but traditionally I wear my $9 Wal Mart timepiece (analog) because it's not a crime if I lose it or scratch the face of it.
It's a flexible band, so I can wear it easily on either wrist (left-handed geek here.)
There also was a Fossil watch a while back that had the cascading "matrix code" in the background. I could kick myself for not getting one because, like the Binary watch... it's just geeky enough not to look like I'm wearing a PDA on my arm...
I have found it very easy to avoid malware on my android phone. Most apps that seem fishy are pretty obvious, and I pay attention to what the app wants to be able to do as for as permissions go. If an app needs more permissions than I'm willing to give, then I generally don't bother. I have a few free apps that are ad supported... and I generally don't go trolling for sex and fart apps (as has been mentioned elsewhere in this discussion...)
Yes, openness has its drawbacks. But like Jefferson said... (paraphrasing) "I would rather have dangerous liberty than safe servitude." Some people are fine being pawns of Apple, Microsoft and the like. Others aren't. If everyone thought as most ./ users, there'd be no iPhone because it would've died on the vine. Diversity is what it is...
That doesn't make them any more correct that because they're locked down and restricted, that somehow they're better off... just less free.
What puzzled me from TFA was just how they determined which swarms to poison. I suspect the trackers helped them, but I guess I don't know enough about BitTorrent to understand magnet links.
More simply, at what time do they determine it's copyrighted material? I wonder if their new-fangled software solution is going to get caught by false positives? The next time I'm downloading a GParted ISO via bittorrent, I don't want the "Pirate Pay" folks screwing with my torrent on accident. I could give two shits about movie torrents or music torrents (it's not worth pirating OR paying for)... so I would hope these Russians have not overlooked the little fact that there are legitimate torrents out there, and that screwing with them will make things worse... (and blow their credibility out of the water...) The idea is all a bit silly, considering the content industry's revenue has hit record levels... all while they are telling the politicians and ignorant public that they're hanging on by a thread. :)
Yeah... okay. Sure we believe you're sincere.... sincerely crazy.
First, it's a joke, Microsoft fanboy. Second, they may not charge you for security fixes, but they do for FEATURES of the OS... get the point?
Some people really need to get off the Bill Gates worship.
Good point, though Adobe's gone one step further... Microsoft ends "mainstream" support fairly consistently (and longer than Adobe, to be sure), but extended support is not so bad (XP will be dead to the world in 2014).... I'll keep my XP machine running until it dies of old age (gotta play all my old games and the machine's woefully underpowered for Win 7.... heh.)
So in Adobe's case, they support only the current version, it seems... no patches.. gotta upgrade for those. If they offer free patches to other problems with CS 5.5, and this one is so systemic they had to rewrite it for CS 6.. makes you wonder who's running QC there at Adobe.
Too bad they don't do that for say, the DVD codec in Windows 8... :)
As the United Kingdom did (well hell, most of Europe) did a couple of centuries ago... Then if you really want to go back a bit farther, the Romans, the Greeks, the Persians, the Hittites, the Assyrians... well... you get the picture.
Is it ethical? No, not really. And as we've evolved as a planet, the justifications put forth for such meddling have been revised to the point of oddity. First it was "to bring others under the benevolent rule of X" (X being whatever empire was in charge at the time)... then it was "to bring civilization to the uncivilized, and grow the mighty and right-sided X" (Empire or country, take your pick.) Then it was "to bring democracy to a hurting and backward people"... and somewhere in between it was "to bring the one true religion of X to the savages and barbarians..." (Not just Christianity, mind you... Islam, Zoroastrianism... you name it... they wanted to export it.)
So while the US (and Europe's) meddling in the Middle East (let's not forget what the European nations did to the Middle East after WW1 and WW2) is just rotten to those on the opposite end of the stick, it's not the first time, nor will it be the last time... the fact that people seem to forget 80 years ago, makes you wonder why Al Qaeda isn't hell-bent on toppling all of Europe for their "crimes against Islam" after the last two great wars. (Hint: it's because there's no righteous anger... it's all about money and power.) "Praise Allah" is another phrase for "I'm tired of the West getting all the cash and luxury."
I'm a cynic and a realist. I don't pretend to believe that the US is a benevolent wondrous example of how to be a nation. It just happens to be my nation... and I forgive it more than I forgive other nations. (And wouldn't you know it? That's usually what happens in every other country.) :)
46% of all our debt is held by foreign governments, of which, China holds 8%.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/profit?s=t
Pretty simple really. Offload more cost to the end user, more profit for the producer.
Now Snow Leopard is free to users who want to transition from MobileMe to iCloud :)
But yes, Apple's OS hasn't been too rigorous in checking what it was installing to. A nice feature compared to the Inquisition that is Microsoft OS installs.
You're right. Microsoft made an incompatible implementation of Java... they called it C# *rimshot*
It's funny... laugh.
Unfortunately they did it to themselves. They refused to adapt to new technology, and as a result, they're playing whack-a-mole with legislation and treaties that do nothing for the widespread bootlegging in emerging markets. Instead of finding a way to monetize that and keep happy customers, they try to squeeze those of us who do pay and do play by the rules as if we're just "on the verge of being a dirty pirate" because we embrace technology and have an mp3 player and computer. (Really, is the Ukraine really a market where you want to charge $20 for a DVD? Where'd these idiots go to business school?)
I used to feel a tinge of guilt when someone put up on a torrent a cammed version of a movie... now I just don't care. When I buy now, I buy used, since most of the movies I want to see are either out of print or not available in my region (as stupid as that sounds, why can't we get the Japanese versions of ALL the Godzilla movies, hmm? What the hell are they doing that keeps a "US version" and a "Japanese version" in separate regions? Not all Godzilla movies feature Raymond Burr to mask the nuclear holocaust warnings the originals had.) :)
Anyway, I'm rambling. I like the Amazon mp3 store... there are some good sales and some great free compilations to get without DRM. Why is it movies and TV shows (that are broadcast without cost to the viewer) held under a lock and key that rivals the CDC's ebola wing? Because the people in charge are stupid. The people in charge of the government are stupid. The people electing them are stupid. The people running multinational corporations are stupid. The media conglomerates are chock full of stupid. Hell, the Justice Department is full of ex-media lawyers and RIAA goons for fuck's sake, what do we expect?
I am done with movie theaters. I am done with new DVDs. If I can get it used, it's not worth watching. It costs less, and it doesn't give those rat bastards a penny who are fucking our technological lead in the ass. Honestly, this is all over something they could've solved 10 YEARS ago instead of litigating the planet into a cesspool of bullshit and draconian laws that outlaw everything this side of whistling. And by FSM, when they find a way to do that, you KNOW they will. Fuck lawyers, politicians, actors, and CEOs in the ass with big rubber dicks.
I guess I am cynical, but I am tired of hearing their excuses... and I am tired of the lack of respect for the Public Domain (the very thing that made Disney billions....) Eh. I hope they all go bankrupt and take about 90% of the overpaid actors/actresses with them. Oh, and could someone please for the love of FSM, NUKE Barbara Streisand from orbit? It's the only way to be sure.
...and your point is? Knives kill thousands a year. Hell, lightning kills hundreds. Poisonous chemicals kill thousands a year in accidental ingestion incidents. Children are killed by opening pill bottles and overdosing.
The tests most states (yes, there are states that let you pay the fee, get fingerprinted, and carry) have for CHL's are pretty rigorous. Much more than the 4 minute multiple choice exam and trip around the neighborhood with officer Dan. You have to be able to shoot... you have to be able to care for your gun and you also have to know EXACTLY when deadly force is allowed and when it is not, and the laws governing that information.
The 2nd Amendment is clear. Yes, I sound like a broken record, but people seem to miss this vital point. Yet they will defend the 1st Amendment to the death... we can't pick and choose our rights... we are born with them. You can choose not to exercise your 2nd Amendment right and I will support you just as I would if you chose to exercise that right.
Then you don't need to carry one. But thanks to the 2nd Amendment, you cannot tell me I can't... nor can the government. Pretty simple really.
No you have to be licensed in Florida too. They fingerprint you and charge you for the license. You're in the system. Why would anyone think that is terrible? Sure, they need to be more proactive in teaching law and conflict resolution (Texas has both in its CHL), but it's not like Dodge City Kansas 1879....
The 2nd Amendment is pretty clear, and the Supreme Court upheld that it is an individual right just like the 1st Amendment.
I KNOW I shouldn't feed a troll, but....
Please tell me where this is. I think I'd like to live there. I've heard Alabama, but I've not found corroborating evidence to make that more than speculation.
Yes, in quite a few states. But you must first pass a rigorous test and are still held ultimately responsible for murder if you use too much force in a situation, not to mention the fact that the test weeds out quite a few people (shooting qualifications that is.) A concealed carry permit holder knows more about gun laws and the criminal code after taking the course than most of the general population does. But I can see where it might frighten you to know someone MIGHT be carrying something you don't know about... chicklets... breath mints, hot sauce packets from Taco Bell....
Yes. Those are from the 1st and 2nd amendments to our Constitution. Shows you've been reading.
Sheriffs are political positions. Some states elect judges, but most are appointed, and they are all appointed at the federal level.
So, if you think a Sheriff is a "justice official", I have some coastal property in Nebraska that has YOU in mind... maybe a villa or some sort of summer home perhaps?
Or you can just run Debian....
I'm not a Libertarian, I'm a libertarian. Yes, Hong Kong isn't perfect... I've said that before. And no, it's not the shining example on the hill. It has the elements of a free market, but it, like everything else, is not a free market in the sense that I think we are capable of. Everyone who says "Free market" isn't a kook. But I can safely say that the cronyism and legislation (and selective application of regulation based on who pays the most) is bad enough that we need something else. We don't need more of the same, and we can't very well eliminate everything that decades of this system has wrought. We can come close, and we can enforce equality through the adherence to the Constitution.. Something the British Empire never had...
And I think you forgot about the entire British Empire as a cesspool of extortion, bribery, and violence (India... just to name one). Just because Hong Kong was a "wild west" market with British help (like I said before, not a true free market.. but closer than we've ever been in the US or Europe), doesn't make everyone who is for a free market somehow ignorant of history and somehow a kook. History has taught you enough to realize the current system is what you explain in your first sentence... the only difference is that lawyers and lobbyists are the mercenaries. And FAR worse, because they legislate and make legal all the things that will bring down our personal liberty. At least you can shoot mercenaries.
I think we can agree that nothing we have has worked. We haven't "de-regulated" squat in the US... we've created artificial oligarchies for those companies who paid for the "De-regulation". (Texas power, California power, banks... etc.) All "De-regulation" has done is eliminate some of the paperwork necessary to get what the cronies already were promised. It's not about freeing markets... it's about unleashing the titans against those who oppose them in the market. Something an adherence to the Constitution would fix if only we hadn't thought "there oughta be a law" every time something fucked up. AT&T, Cable, Big Content... consolidation of banks... all "de-regulated" to the point of serving those in power with piles of money. Nothing free about that, unless you're the one getting the cash.
We've seen what a subservient role to a government unshackled by constraints can do. We see many places trying to move away from it (even the vaunted nanny states of Europe) and yet we have the same voices claiming the same nonsense about "Fair" and "regulatory matters" as if they are speaking something new. It's not new... but we keep electing the idiots here in the US as if it were.
It's indeed funny that we have the exact problem you say a free market would have right now. We are at the mercy of the tyranny of the rich and strongest. They got that way through manipulating the regulatory arm you cling to. A Free Market has nothing to do with anarchy. A free market is only an ideal because we can't wrap our heads around what it means. People always want to qualify a free market with an "if" or a "but"... We have had a sufficiently stable government for centuries that has done nothing but grow larger, more invasive and regulatory and yet we have as corrupt a system as you could possibly dream up for a free market. Government subsidies for farms, kickbacks for "oil exploration", and sweetheart deals for this or that. The internet is a prime example of a free market style idea growing out of a military project. If it weren't for those original people, we'd still have ARPANET and MILNET. Sure some of the biggest seeds came out of academia, but the internet only went so far through those channels. Now the government wants in on the profits, and we see SOPA/PIPA and the corporatist goons trying to legislate their way to the top of the market.
Cable television was a free market idea, and then it got sucked into regulatory contracts, government sponsored monopolies and government copyright/trademark hell... considering the fact that the internet is suffering from the same problem, I can see we share the same fear. :) But my fear is from the over-regulated consequences of the old guard buying their influence so the new guard cannot enter. Like I said earlier, we have a "dog eat dog" system... it just has a smaller cadre of "dogs" eating the rest of us.
As for Hong Kong, the British rode it by not enforcing any of the old world government shackles they were stuck with in their own country... and China hasn't changed that much, in spite of being very capable of turning anything into a government-run institution. It's not perfect, but Hong Kong is the closest to a free market we can get with the current cronyism that plagues western civilization.
With the current system of government and payola, which would try to occur in a free market, the market would be well able to handle it. While company A was greasing a politician, company B would swoop in and take the market away from them. But we can't have that when the government actually prevents company B from offering a product that company A is unwilling to sell or unwilling to move on price... because Company A squelches competition through "regulatory framework" or a completely fucked up copyright and patent system. The government should be the arbiter of disputes between participants in the market, and should enforce liberty and property protections that the Constitution enumerates... it should not control markets and prop up campaign donors with new laws designed to screw the little guy and keep the money flowing back to them. That is why we won't have a free market. That is why we can't have one.
None have tried. Free Energy is a joke, a free market is something that COULD exist. And yes, politicians who say anything about free markets are full of shit. If more people realized that, perhaps things would be better. Of course, a close proximity to a free market (as best as we can see these days) is Hong Kong (both pre and post handover...) It's not surprising that China wouldn't change much of how Hong Kong worked after Britain handed it over.... (We'll see how long that lasts of course...)
But you are incorrect in thinking a free market is a myth. It's more of an ideal, and those who don't believe in it or who cannot operate in it make sure we never reach that ideal... unlike free energy where someone is selling you a line of shit for a price....
FTFY.
These United States wouldn't know a free market if it sat on our face and started to wiggle.
"Cruel and unusual" is a lack of a sarcasm tag... or in your case, a troll tag...
Good points... and quite frankly we see analogies of this as progress marches on in many industries. I don't think the oft-cited "buggy whip cartel" is in a tizzy since we went to those new-fangled horseless carriages. :) I do remember from history class vast swaths of those in power who wanted to suppress the printing press. It ruined their hold on the masses if moveable type got the message out. :) Of course parallels can be drawn today regarding the content industry's loosening grip on society and the democratization of technology. Is it always clean and neat? No, the printing press had the European book producers in a tizzy.... with knockoff versions of their books appearing on street corners.... It's not always pretty either. We've seen the lengths to which Big Content will go to keep their status quo, but like every other industry that has tried (even with government help sometimes)... they have all either adapted or died.
These dinosaurs are at a crossroads, though. Adaptation or oblivion. They have the power to choose. They do not however have the power to keep things as they are. Trying to stop progress is like trying to stop the earth from rotating. Best of luck with that, even with all the draconian laws and attempts to silence the future...
I think you're missing the point of conflict of interest. A conflict of interest is something that will keep you from being impartial, like a judge getting money from the RIAA ruling on the DeCSS case. Since PJ just puts up an editorial blog and shows the SCO case against Linux is bullshit, she is not influencing anything or tainting the impartiality of a proceeding by doing so. She is not involved in the case with Oracle v. Google. She was not involved in the SCO case either. The fact that the courts agreed SCO was full of shit had nothing to do with groklaw or PJ.
Now, if by some reasoning we can say "well PJ has bias because she gets her hosting from IBM"... okay, then that's fine and dandy, but unlike Florian who would argue the sky was orange if someone from FOSS said it was blue, PJ keeps her bias up front. Knowing this, her facts are correct. They are facts colored with the language of someone who hates SCO/Oracle, but they are facts nonetheless.
So in short, a conflict of interest would need to be disclosed if there was something to gain or lose by that interest from either party involved in the proceeding. Since PJ was just an observer, there was no conflict of interest. SCO didn't lose the case because of groklaw... it lost the case because it was full of shit and trolling. It got caught doing so and was spanked out of existence, in SPITE of cash from Microsoft...
Bias != conflict of interest. and Florian has only a bias because even though he's paid by Oracle and Microsoft, his comments on groklaw do not influence proceedings.