My pardons for going OT, but who's actually seen this anti-currency copying code in action? I picked up my HP PSC all-in-one from Costco a year ago. After reading about anti-counterfeiting firmware, I tested my scanner to watch what happened. It sucked a new bill into (Mac) Photoshop 7 at 1200dpi w/o a problem. Is 1200dpi too coarse to bother with, or is this whole thing becoming an urban myth?
Whatever he is, Arben Kryeziu ain't a kid. He got himself from Albania, to Germany, and then to Hawaii in search of his fortunes. He met his wife while vacationing in Hawaii. He's an adult who hooked up with a Maui businessman, Jim Kartes, to crank out software and IT services.
Arben seemed to be doing just fine until he pulled this cheap stunt. I'll bet a lunch at L&L Drive Inn that Jim told Arben to pull the plug on this Cherry thing, once he realized that the bad PR threatened to shit-stain his business reputation. I wouldn't doubt that Kartes lacked the technical saavy to know that his partner was utitilizing the work of others without attribution... until it was spelled out to him by the "lynch-mob".
A Microsoft/SCO PR flack asks: "How can I use public forums to help prevent governmental organizations from diverting taxpayer dollars from our coffers? How do governments (esp. US and Australia) deal with legal blackmail that might prevent them from using a specific OSS product, which might be deployed by a given government department? Can I create the perception of danger within various (government or not for that matter) agencies so that they'll be told 'not to use this or that software from now on' because of some virtually non-existant threat of patent battles in court going against this particular piece of software? We've already locked in small business, so they don't count. But, government agencies in the US and Australia have enough clout and a different business rationale, so I need to convince them that they'll get seriously screwed over (note that we haven't rolled the EU on s/w patents, yet). I'm really not a paid flunky for Microsoft/SCO, really, so you show me your FOSS evangelist "play book" that I won't use to craft a workaround in my astroturfing projects?"
:-) Works for me, although I'd imagine that the intent is to believe in a higher sentience embodied with the force.
On the other hand, the Jains don't hold truck with creator gods and goddesses of any sort, and they've had a BSA religious service award, modified as of late to give less promenence to the swastika.
o you're saying that kicking a child out of a group that he obviously cares about for his beliefs is the best way (or even a good way) to teach him about intolerance in the world.
It is a good way in that he learns a lesson about the consequences of forcing an issue. I talked with the young man (or child, your call) several times and at length about his beliefs; offered my opinion that as far as the Scout/God issue went, he might be a bit young to set his opinions in stone; finally, offered to advise him on playing the system. I spelled out cause and effect if he wasn't willing to temper his position.
In the end, he didn't offer any coherent defense of his position, nor give a sign that he'd taken in what I had to say. He was 'way too wrapped up in the esoterica he's been learning about Kerr Black Holes. In essence, he was just exhibiting the fact that he hadn't been exposed to religon of any sort in even a limited way. Even in the US, being that uninformed about the culture that surrounds one can have unpleasant consequences. Hell, my folks didn't drag me to church, either, but at least told me enough about (in my case) Christianity to have a clue what everyone else was fussing about.
That is horrible. You should be ashamed. Learning to deal with the harsh realities of the world is one thing. Causing the harsh realities of the world and telling a kid to deal with it is another.
If anyone should be ashamed, it's the young man's parents. One had been scoutmaster until pretty recently, the other a board member of our local scout council. Causing the harsh realities? They should have known better, and either properly prepped him, or not enrolled him in the first place. We let him down easy.
If you say "I don't believe in God", you can no longer be considered a Boy Scout and will get kicked out of your troop.
Having recently dealt with this in my troop, I can say that you're absolutely right.... but you really need some context. The BSA (A == USA) position is that they want kids to acknowledge that there's some power greater than themselves, than what they can see and feel. It's a requirement, but it's a very fuzzy one, in that. Hell, if you so much as claimed midoclorians en mass were the driving Force of the universe with a straight face, you're good to go. Granted, the Baptist minister of our chartering organization might lift an eyebrow, but he'd have to live with it.
Frankly, the higher power requirement itself isn't that big of a deal to me. Our kids get some practice for adult life, such as in teamwork, leadership, and deciding how much fight you want to put into defending a belief system. The kid in my troop decided to take a hike... and joined another troop in more or less of a "don't ask, don't tell" situation. Better he get first exposure to that as an Eagle candidate at 15 than as a naive college grad looking to climb a career ladder.
I'm not too keen on the gay ban in Scouts, but the Scouts are not a cutting edge social organization, and if it looks like we're still a half generation away from full civil rights for gays, it isn't going to help by crucifying the Scouts for reflecting that. You want to beat on someone, beat on the Mormons for making Scouts their official youth program, with the result that about a quarter of all Scouts are Mormon. Ergo, Mormon mores have a lot of pull.
That said, if the BSA ever hooked up with the MPAA on something as off the wall and candyass as an "IP protection" merit badge, particularly if they made it a requirement for Eagle, I'd piss and moan to the high heavens.
I think you're right. I think/. is by and large moderated in the United States, where it's usually considered a character flaw to "beat around the bush". A cultural quirk, but there you go.
Ok, your post was theoretically scored as a troll for it's likelihood of provoking pointless argument, so let's get to the point. You consider the Titan launch an escalation of space militarization. Assuming the most likely case, that it's one reconissance bird replacing another, what's the issue? Don't see any value in nations keeping an eye on each other? Ever use Google maps or Keyhole? If so, how are you or I any different than the US DoD, unless you're assuming it increases the odds that the DoD will use the information to whack someone.
Really, space-based information gathering is old, old news. If you really thought the bird was packing heat, then your comment could rise above it's (-1).
I don't support the current Administration's action, but this makes political sense. Sure, the people being pulled from the IATC delegation are there to provide technical testimony, but ideology and political calculation can raise their heads at such forums pretty quickly, even if only to push implementations that might or might not favor a (hypothetical example) particular telecon provider.
If the Clinton Administration had really been as slick as some liked to claim, Linda Tripp wouldn't have lasted two days in the White House after the '93 Inauguration, much less long enough to make a name for someone.
Now, out in the western US, it doesn't always follow that you clear the decks in the bureaucracy when a new party takes over, but in places like New Jersey, it's standard practice. In the short run, I'm OK with the national GOP ratching up the winner take all policies in the Federal Government. Because as surely as God made hanging chads, a workable majority of citizens eventually get sick of which ever party is in power, and they make it known with votes.
In the long run, the logical conclusion is that the players so demonize their opponents that one will outlaw the other in the national interest, so here's to whatever eventually changes the logic.
Allow me to speculate as to why Nikon can use the DMCA to "protect" their white balance algorithm:
Back in the day (to-day, on occasion), I used a camera to fix the play of light onto chemically treated film. I ran the film through a chemical bath, and then ran light through the film onto photo-sensitive paper, which was then itself bathed. While the precise formulations of the film, development chemicals, and photo paper may be trade secrets, the general process isn't, so I could swap various vendors in and out of my production process more or less at will.
Nowadays, a full digital production process produces good enough results that the convenience usually outweighs what ever superiority the analog process provides in the final result. Just like LP, to CD, to MP3. And, just like the audio analogy I just hinted at, I've now introduced embedded software into the mix... and I bet that if I took the time to dig out my Nikon (Coolpix) manual and looked hard enough, I'd find that the embedded software is merely licenced to me. Naturally, the frickin' hardware is for all intents and purposes useless without the licensed firmware, so when I bought the camera (and the non-Linux computer, and printer) I was merely purchasing a non-exclusive license that allows me to manipulate light, digital signals, and ink with that particular equipment kit.
To say that the content is owned by the creator misses the point (in Nikon's eyes). The content is going through their process, and - to stretch my point - they don't feel any more compelled to tell us how the process works than I am to teach you how I paint your portrait.
Yes, this sucks, but it shouldn't be a surprise in a nation where our right of free speech vaporizes the moment we switch from pen, paper, and the offset press to a computer and TCP/IP. We do have the right to swap out the offending firmware from hardware we have purchased, but attempting to reverse engineer everything in sight is a losing battle. Better to change the rules of the game.
C'mon, You Knew This Was Going To Happen
on
Linus Drops BitKeeper
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Yes, Linus had a perfectly good reason for selecting BitKeeper. And, one could reasonably anticipate that Bitmover would do what it did. Hell, if you read what Larry McVoy had to say back when Linus jumped onboard back in '02, he made it quite clear that he was going to get pissed if someone tried to reverse engineer the code. Richard Stallman doesn't have to say "I told you so", 'cause he already did, three years ago.
So, in conclusion, big frickin' deal. BK got a few years of valuable, free beta testing, Linus got some work done, and the Open source folks got a reminder as to why the Free source folks got religon.
Often a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and even their sizes and distances,... and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture. We should do all that we can to avoid such an embarrassing situation, lest the unbeliever see only ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn.
Ergo, 2045 World Series MVP: Mohammed Saleh?
on
Juiced
·
· Score: 1
Your point is well taken. Long term British occupation leads to cricket, long term American occupation leads to baseball. In any case, it takes an army. Baseball became a national game as a side effect of New England units of the Federal Army passed their game far and wide during the US Civil War.
You can see some of this in portions of northern Iraq that are peaceful enough for US forces to interact with civilians without full body armor... they're teaching the kids baseball.
While I'm horrified at the thought of shutting down the Voyager missions, the threat of termination doesn't surprise me. Come the begining of each local, state, or Federal budget cycle, especially when there's guns and tax cuts sucking at every dollar in sight, administrators become extremely "practical".
With the exception of a few sacred cows, every office and program becomes expendable. If there aren't enough of the right people bitching and moaning to defend program X, then it's not important enough to fund. Sure, it's a pain in the ass to have to rejustify one's work each year or so, but it's not an unreasonable way to allocate resources within a huge organization such as the US Federal Government.
Unfortunately, humans don't organize well beyond a certain size, hence the collapse of the Soviet state, and NASA considering wiping a program when it's just about to start paying off in valuable science again.
The following isn't a end-all, be-all defense for the blogger, but it can't hurt:
Because hardcopy periodicals were the standard mass media during the founding of the US republic, they have arbitrarily been given greater protection from government and private restraint of publication than subsequent technologies. Logically and practically, it puts you in the same soup as arguing whether the Founding Fathers intended the bearing of automatic arms or not, but that's Anglo-American jurisprudence for you.
Therefore, I posit that unpaid bloggers wishing to protect their speech from regulation, censorship, or prior restraint would "only" need to get thee down to the local printers or repro shop on a sceduled basis to print digests. Slap a Volume and Issue number on the header, drop some copies at the local bar, make cheap paid subscriptions available from your web site, and you're a "real" publisher.
Sure, this is more hassle than planting your ass in front of your terminal, but if/until Congress passes laws explicitly protecting on-line content, I'll rationalize that it's healthy to get out of the house a little more often.
Because hardcopy periodicals were the standard mass media during the founding of the US republic, they have arbitrarily been given greater protection from government and private restraint of publication than subsequent technologies. Logically and practically, it puts you in the same soup as arguing whether the Founding Fathers intended the bearing of automatic arms or not, but that's Anglo-American jurisprudence for you.
Therefore, I posit that unpaid bloggers wishing to protect their speech from regulation would "only" need to get thee down to the local printers or repro shop on a sceduled basis to print digests. Slap a Volume and Issue number on the header, drop some copies at the local bar, make cheap paid subscriptions available from your web site, and you're a "real" publisher.
Sure, this is more hassle than planting your ass in front of your terminal, but if/until Congress cleans up the after affects of Judge Kollar-Kotelly's ruling, I'll rationalize that it's healthy to get out of the house a little more often.
Indeed. I know who Roberta Pournelle is, but I wasn't sure if the person asking the question or the moderators do... hence the awkward dropping of her husband's name.
Jerry Pournelle's wife has been selling a reading software package for Windows and MacOS for years. For more information, read the proud husband's write up at http://www.jerrypournelle.com/Reading.html
To order, surf to http://www.readingtlc.com/, it's about $200 per seat.
Perhaps China's communist regime has an advantage after all: they can actually do things that will be GOOD for their country, like building nuclear power plants without endless ranting and raving from protesters, and storing waste safely in places like Yucca Mountain (because having waste at ~150 temporary, insecure facilities is certainly better than having it at one site, imperfect as it may be).
Like the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River? I'll grant you that the nuclear debate in the US long ago degenerated into shouting. However, the Chinese committees that make these decisions accept so little outside input, and what input there is even today confined by self censorship, that the "advantage" you speak of can quickly show itself an illusion.
The USA has a huge head start that the Corporate Overlords are seeking to destroy.
I'll agree with most of what you've said while splitting hairs on this detail: I don't think they're seeking to destroy it so much as they've elected to cash it in for a short term gain. Whether they realise the likely consequences of what they do, I can't say.
As for the population = destiny argument, the US is due for a half billion souls by '50, so unless the other players manage to pull up their per capta GDP and get a handle on some of their cultural (Pakistan) and demographic (China) issues, their influence by sheer numbers will be a bit limited... barring the US elites not fscking up their own country too badly in the meantime.
I was afraid the legalism in the USA would kill innovation. Looks like Japanese are just as stupid. Oh well, good for Brazil, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, or some other country that fosters innovation.
On the chance this isn't a factitious quip: it takes more to foster s/w innovation than pulling goofy patents out of the way. While there may be countries that allow the s/w developer to stretch her wings further than Japan or the US, with the possible exception of Brazil, the list above ain't it.
From the small business/start-up's POV, they all suffer from elevated degrees of graft, cronism, difficult/no access to capital, crappy local s/w markets, arbitrary application of laws, and nearly worthless court systems.
Social Security Reform For Dummies
on
State of the Union
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The Bush plan operates in three distinct phases, and it's important to understand all three, and to understand them as separate, because only phase two is even remotely construable as an effort to improve Social Security's finances.
Phase one: default on the General Fund's debt to the Social Security Trust Fund in order to make room in the budget (sort of) to make the Bush tax cuts permanent.
Phase two: Once that's done, Social Security doesn't have nearly enough revenue to cover currently promised benefits. The White House wants to resolve this through some unspecified level of benefit cuts. The idea is that promised benefits will now be brought into line with the (reduced) quantity of funds available. From here on out, Social Security's accounts will be balanced in a cash flow sense. The amount of money paid out each year will be equal to the amount of FICA collected.
Phase three: we divert one third of our payroll taxes into something resembling an account under the Thrift Savings Plan. Once we choose to do this, Social Security's cash flow will be messed up. Four percentage points of our wage income that were supposed to be going to pay grandma's Social Security benefits are now sitting in our private account. As a result, the government will need to borrow some money to pay grandma's benefits. The administration believes that that money can be borrowed at a 3 percent rate of interest. When we retire, our guaranteed benefits -- already substantially cut during phase two -- will be cut a second time. The size of this cut will be equivalent to the value of our total contribution to our private account, plus 3 percent interest per year. Thus, once we retire, we will have access to all of the money in our private account, but our guaranteed benefits will have been cut twice. Our little brother, meanwhile, who didn't put money into his private account, will only have his benefits cut once.
If that's too complex, try this: Instead of saying that 4 percentage points of my FICA were diverted into a private account and then the government borrows an equivalent amount of money in order to pay grandma's benefits, say that...
1) All of my FICA goes to pay for grandma
2) The government lends me an amount of money equal to 4 percentage points of my FICA.
3) When I retire, I get the money in my private account, but I need to repay all those loans with an interest rate of 3 percent.
4) In addition to my private account (with the loan repaid) I then get to collect (reduced) guaranteed benefits.
My apologies to Matt Yglesias, from whom this analysis was stolen with minor reforming.
As it turns out, I (and I'm sure, others here) have contacts that can provide first hand information. In addition, the web provides lots of leads.
But, why on Earth any one would spill their guts here is beyond me. If someone has a specific personal methodology that works, the quickest way to fuck it up is to talk about it.
I've gotten used to Plumeria as an outdoor plant in my neck of the woods. If forced back to mainland USA, I'd do as most do, indoors.
The flowers are fragrant without being sickly so. Provided the office stays at least 70, you'll have leaves for all year except - say - Febrary, during which time you can blow off the watering. As long as the inside temp stays above 40, it'll come back big time in the spring. The branches are pretty thick and stay green, so it won't come off as spindly. When it gets too big for its britches, you can safely cut it back and pass out the cuttings to the potted plant gardeners hiding among your friends and coworkers. Don't worry, they'll find you after the first bloom.
Slashdot Mirror
My pardons for going OT, but who's actually seen this anti-currency copying code in action? I picked up my HP PSC all-in-one from Costco a year ago. After reading about anti-counterfeiting firmware, I tested my scanner to watch what happened. It sucked a new bill into (Mac) Photoshop 7 at 1200dpi w/o a problem. Is 1200dpi too coarse to bother with, or is this whole thing becoming an urban myth?
Arben seemed to be doing just fine until he pulled this cheap stunt. I'll bet a lunch at L&L Drive Inn that Jim told Arben to pull the plug on this Cherry thing, once he realized that the bad PR threatened to shit-stain his business reputation. I wouldn't doubt that Kartes lacked the technical saavy to know that his partner was utitilizing the work of others without attribution... until it was spelled out to him by the "lynch-mob".
A Microsoft/SCO PR flack asks: "How can I use public forums to help prevent governmental organizations from diverting taxpayer dollars from our coffers? How do governments (esp. US and Australia) deal with legal blackmail that might prevent them from using a specific OSS product, which might be deployed by a given government department? Can I create the perception of danger within various (government or not for that matter) agencies so that they'll be told 'not to use this or that software from now on' because of some virtually non-existant threat of patent battles in court going against this particular piece of software? We've already locked in small business, so they don't count. But, government agencies in the US and Australia have enough clout and a different business rationale, so I need to convince them that they'll get seriously screwed over (note that we haven't rolled the EU on s/w patents, yet). I'm really not a paid flunky for Microsoft/SCO, really, so you show me your FOSS evangelist "play book" that I won't use to craft a workaround in my astroturfing projects?"
On the other hand, the Jains don't hold truck with creator gods and goddesses of any sort, and they've had a BSA religious service award, modified as of late to give less promenence to the swastika.
It is a good way in that he learns a lesson about the consequences of forcing an issue. I talked with the young man (or child, your call) several times and at length about his beliefs; offered my opinion that as far as the Scout/God issue went, he might be a bit young to set his opinions in stone; finally, offered to advise him on playing the system. I spelled out cause and effect if he wasn't willing to temper his position.
In the end, he didn't offer any coherent defense of his position, nor give a sign that he'd taken in what I had to say. He was 'way too wrapped up in the esoterica he's been learning about Kerr Black Holes. In essence, he was just exhibiting the fact that he hadn't been exposed to religon of any sort in even a limited way. Even in the US, being that uninformed about the culture that surrounds one can have unpleasant consequences. Hell, my folks didn't drag me to church, either, but at least told me enough about (in my case) Christianity to have a clue what everyone else was fussing about.
That is horrible. You should be ashamed. Learning to deal with the harsh realities of the world is one thing. Causing the harsh realities of the world and telling a kid to deal with it is another.
If anyone should be ashamed, it's the young man's parents. One had been scoutmaster until pretty recently, the other a board member of our local scout council. Causing the harsh realities? They should have known better, and either properly prepped him, or not enrolled him in the first place. We let him down easy.
Having recently dealt with this in my troop, I can say that you're absolutely right.... but you really need some context. The BSA (A == USA) position is that they want kids to acknowledge that there's some power greater than themselves, than what they can see and feel. It's a requirement, but it's a very fuzzy one, in that. Hell, if you so much as claimed midoclorians en mass were the driving Force of the universe with a straight face, you're good to go. Granted, the Baptist minister of our chartering organization might lift an eyebrow, but he'd have to live with it.
Frankly, the higher power requirement itself isn't that big of a deal to me. Our kids get some practice for adult life, such as in teamwork, leadership, and deciding how much fight you want to put into defending a belief system. The kid in my troop decided to take a hike... and joined another troop in more or less of a "don't ask, don't tell" situation. Better he get first exposure to that as an Eagle candidate at 15 than as a naive college grad looking to climb a career ladder.
I'm not too keen on the gay ban in Scouts, but the Scouts are not a cutting edge social organization, and if it looks like we're still a half generation away from full civil rights for gays, it isn't going to help by crucifying the Scouts for reflecting that. You want to beat on someone, beat on the Mormons for making Scouts their official youth program, with the result that about a quarter of all Scouts are Mormon. Ergo, Mormon mores have a lot of pull.
That said, if the BSA ever hooked up with the MPAA on something as off the wall and candyass as an "IP protection" merit badge, particularly if they made it a requirement for Eagle, I'd piss and moan to the high heavens.
Ok, your post was theoretically scored as a troll for it's likelihood of provoking pointless argument, so let's get to the point. You consider the Titan launch an escalation of space militarization. Assuming the most likely case, that it's one reconissance bird replacing another, what's the issue? Don't see any value in nations keeping an eye on each other? Ever use Google maps or Keyhole? If so, how are you or I any different than the US DoD, unless you're assuming it increases the odds that the DoD will use the information to whack someone.
Really, space-based information gathering is old, old news. If you really thought the bird was packing heat, then your comment could rise above it's (-1).
The work you're looking for is unethical, not slick. Unethical behavior is not to be rewarded or admired.
Potato, potaato.
If the Clinton Administration had really been as slick as some liked to claim, Linda Tripp wouldn't have lasted two days in the White House after the '93 Inauguration, much less long enough to make a name for someone.
Now, out in the western US, it doesn't always follow that you clear the decks in the bureaucracy when a new party takes over, but in places like New Jersey, it's standard practice. In the short run, I'm OK with the national GOP ratching up the winner take all policies in the Federal Government. Because as surely as God made hanging chads, a workable majority of citizens eventually get sick of which ever party is in power, and they make it known with votes.
In the long run, the logical conclusion is that the players so demonize their opponents that one will outlaw the other in the national interest, so here's to whatever eventually changes the logic.
Back in the day (to-day, on occasion), I used a camera to fix the play of light onto chemically treated film. I ran the film through a chemical bath, and then ran light through the film onto photo-sensitive paper, which was then itself bathed. While the precise formulations of the film, development chemicals, and photo paper may be trade secrets, the general process isn't, so I could swap various vendors in and out of my production process more or less at will.
Nowadays, a full digital production process produces good enough results that the convenience usually outweighs what ever superiority the analog process provides in the final result. Just like LP, to CD, to MP3. And, just like the audio analogy I just hinted at, I've now introduced embedded software into the mix... and I bet that if I took the time to dig out my Nikon (Coolpix) manual and looked hard enough, I'd find that the embedded software is merely licenced to me. Naturally, the frickin' hardware is for all intents and purposes useless without the licensed firmware, so when I bought the camera (and the non-Linux computer, and printer) I was merely purchasing a non-exclusive license that allows me to manipulate light, digital signals, and ink with that particular equipment kit.
To say that the content is owned by the creator misses the point (in Nikon's eyes). The content is going through their process, and - to stretch my point - they don't feel any more compelled to tell us how the process works than I am to teach you how I paint your portrait.
Yes, this sucks, but it shouldn't be a surprise in a nation where our right of free speech vaporizes the moment we switch from pen, paper, and the offset press to a computer and TCP/IP. We do have the right to swap out the offending firmware from hardware we have purchased, but attempting to reverse engineer everything in sight is a losing battle. Better to change the rules of the game.
So, in conclusion, big frickin' deal. BK got a few years of valuable, free beta testing, Linus got some work done, and the Open source folks got a reminder as to why the Free source folks got religon.
Often a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and even their sizes and distances,... and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture. We should do all that we can to avoid such an embarrassing situation, lest the unbeliever see only ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn.
From De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim (The Literal Meaning of Genesis). But, why listen to what a dead Papist has to say, eh?
You can see some of this in portions of northern Iraq that are peaceful enough for US forces to interact with civilians without full body armor... they're teaching the kids baseball.
With the exception of a few sacred cows, every office and program becomes expendable. If there aren't enough of the right people bitching and moaning to defend program X, then it's not important enough to fund. Sure, it's a pain in the ass to have to rejustify one's work each year or so, but it's not an unreasonable way to allocate resources within a huge organization such as the US Federal Government.
Unfortunately, humans don't organize well beyond a certain size, hence the collapse of the Soviet state, and NASA considering wiping a program when it's just about to start paying off in valuable science again.
Because hardcopy periodicals were the standard mass media during the founding of the US republic, they have arbitrarily been given greater protection from government and private restraint of publication than subsequent technologies. Logically and practically, it puts you in the same soup as arguing whether the Founding Fathers intended the bearing of automatic arms or not, but that's Anglo-American jurisprudence for you.
Therefore, I posit that unpaid bloggers wishing to protect their speech from regulation, censorship, or prior restraint would "only" need to get thee down to the local printers or repro shop on a sceduled basis to print digests. Slap a Volume and Issue number on the header, drop some copies at the local bar, make cheap paid subscriptions available from your web site, and you're a "real" publisher.
Sure, this is more hassle than planting your ass in front of your terminal, but if/until Congress passes laws explicitly protecting on-line content, I'll rationalize that it's healthy to get out of the house a little more often.
Therefore, I posit that unpaid bloggers wishing to protect their speech from regulation would "only" need to get thee down to the local printers or repro shop on a sceduled basis to print digests. Slap a Volume and Issue number on the header, drop some copies at the local bar, make cheap paid subscriptions available from your web site, and you're a "real" publisher.
Sure, this is more hassle than planting your ass in front of your terminal, but if/until Congress cleans up the after affects of Judge Kollar-Kotelly's ruling, I'll rationalize that it's healthy to get out of the house a little more often.
Indeed. I know who Roberta Pournelle is, but I wasn't sure if the person asking the question or the moderators do... hence the awkward dropping of her husband's name.
To order, surf to http://www.readingtlc.com/, it's about $200 per seat.
Like the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River? I'll grant you that the nuclear debate in the US long ago degenerated into shouting. However, the Chinese committees that make these decisions accept so little outside input, and what input there is even today confined by self censorship, that the "advantage" you speak of can quickly show itself an illusion.
I'll agree with most of what you've said while splitting hairs on this detail: I don't think they're seeking to destroy it so much as they've elected to cash it in for a short term gain. Whether they realise the likely consequences of what they do, I can't say.
As for the population = destiny argument, the US is due for a half billion souls by '50, so unless the other players manage to pull up their per capta GDP and get a handle on some of their cultural (Pakistan) and demographic (China) issues, their influence by sheer numbers will be a bit limited... barring the US elites not fscking up their own country too badly in the meantime.
On the chance this isn't a factitious quip: it takes more to foster s/w innovation than pulling goofy patents out of the way. While there may be countries that allow the s/w developer to stretch her wings further than Japan or the US, with the possible exception of Brazil, the list above ain't it.
From the small business/start-up's POV, they all suffer from elevated degrees of graft, cronism, difficult/no access to capital, crappy local s/w markets, arbitrary application of laws, and nearly worthless court systems.
Phase one: default on the General Fund's debt to the Social Security Trust Fund in order to make room in the budget (sort of) to make the Bush tax cuts permanent.
Phase two: Once that's done, Social Security doesn't have nearly enough revenue to cover currently promised benefits. The White House wants to resolve this through some unspecified level of benefit cuts. The idea is that promised benefits will now be brought into line with the (reduced) quantity of funds available. From here on out, Social Security's accounts will be balanced in a cash flow sense. The amount of money paid out each year will be equal to the amount of FICA collected.
Phase three: we divert one third of our payroll taxes into something resembling an account under the Thrift Savings Plan. Once we choose to do this, Social Security's cash flow will be messed up. Four percentage points of our wage income that were supposed to be going to pay grandma's Social Security benefits are now sitting in our private account. As a result, the government will need to borrow some money to pay grandma's benefits. The administration believes that that money can be borrowed at a 3 percent rate of interest. When we retire, our guaranteed benefits -- already substantially cut during phase two -- will be cut a second time. The size of this cut will be equivalent to the value of our total contribution to our private account, plus 3 percent interest per year. Thus, once we retire, we will have access to all of the money in our private account, but our guaranteed benefits will have been cut twice. Our little brother, meanwhile, who didn't put money into his private account, will only have his benefits cut once.
If that's too complex, try this:
Instead of saying that 4 percentage points of my FICA were diverted into a private account and then the government borrows an equivalent amount of money in order to pay grandma's benefits, say that...
1) All of my FICA goes to pay for grandma
2) The government lends me an amount of money equal to 4 percentage points of my FICA.
3) When I retire, I get the money in my private account, but I need to repay all those loans with an interest rate of 3 percent.
4) In addition to my private account (with the loan repaid) I then get to collect (reduced) guaranteed benefits.
My apologies to Matt Yglesias, from whom this analysis was stolen with minor reforming.
It's a shallow enough childishness that a few months in the pokey should slap us right back into adulthood.
But, why on Earth any one would spill their guts here is beyond me. If someone has a specific personal methodology that works, the quickest way to fuck it up is to talk about it.
The flowers are fragrant without being sickly so. Provided the office stays at least 70, you'll have leaves for all year except - say - Febrary, during which time you can blow off the watering. As long as the inside temp stays above 40, it'll come back big time in the spring. The branches are pretty thick and stay green, so it won't come off as spindly. When it gets too big for its britches, you can safely cut it back and pass out the cuttings to the potted plant gardeners hiding among your friends and coworkers. Don't worry, they'll find you after the first bloom.