Yes, I saw him on BoB, thought it was spectacular work, showing the human side of a soldier driven to alcohol by what he has seen and lived through. Much easier to just play the drunk (as mentioned above.) On the other hand, I think his work on the Practice is borderline catatonic - but so is the writing so I'm not really sure it's fair to blame him. What the man truly does well is subversive - in his look, his attitude and his tone - a good agent should be able to find him roles where that could really shine. Heck, he's one of the few actors I can think of who could have carried off DeNiro's character part in Brazil
Re. the post just above this on, The Organization Man is INDESPENSIBLE reading for anyone who wants to understand the culture we live in today. It lays out the genesis of the modern capitalist culture from a individual and organizational level. The problem is what innovation will ever see this model change? It could be the foundation for our culture for a good long time.
BTW - I am very pro-capitalism, but one cannot look at life within the current corporate structure and think this is good for society long-term IMO.
don't mess with mans sig. Yeah, its a paraphrase (hence the...... as the entire quote wouldn't fit as a sig and (I think) the shortend version communicates the same thought - and hopefully encourages people to seek out and read the story.
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal...in every way Harrison Bergeron? Vonnegut?
Nope. The Democrat party's vision statement.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t; Answering the first ? - Yes, the (very) short story influenced my young mind more than most and the fact that he predicted the equality of outcomes movement is, to me, just more evidence of KVs genius.
Answering the second (pudknocker) Anyone who confuses the ravings of liberal naderites with position of the institutional Democratic party deserves the theocratic, conform of be investigated for unAmericanism, socially stratified state they will end up with.
somebody mod this guy up at least informative +1, this is exactly the point - it doesn't have to be grey grey grey out there, and only a sadist would fail to care about its' effect on the people who must live that way day in, day out.
The Victorian and post victorian office (as opposed to factory or farm, entirely different issues) was more closely related to the home (specifically sitting rooms and entertaining spaces) then to the modern antiseptic workplace.
While this is partially attributable to materials (wood furniture rather then metal which became more practical after WW2) and other design changes (blinds vs. draperies, industrial vs. traditional carpeting) the fact is that even the most official spaces (government offices) or cutting edge industries (the automakers of the time) had office suites that more closely resembled an entertaining space then a modern office.
Many of the dystopian visions of the 30's had office spaces being converted into a regimented facsimile of the factory floor (not too unlike todays cubical farms - this was a vision of a dark future, not an indication of the present. The the mass secretarial pools needed to run the WWII war effort may be the point of origin for the modern office space, as they introduced metrics of efficiency and hourly productivity to what had been a "professional" occupation.
being an afficionado of dark comedy, I have long been a fan of Office Space. I may be one of five buyers of the (poorly produced) DVD. The performances, particularly Ron Livingstone (hugely underrated actor) and Diedrich Bader (almost unrecognizable) make it a real gem.
On the subject of red staplers, why has the post WWII workplace insisted on mono-color conformity? It seems almost a conspiracy to ensure that office workers be isolated from as much visual stimulation as possible. Is it so important that the occasional visitor/client not see a single clash of colors that offends their sensibility? It would not revolutionize the drudgery of the workplace, but more allowances for individuality and color can't help but improve the condiditon of those who must exist in that environment from day to day.
The whole "flair" concept at the Houlihans type restaurant carries the same theme. Even where modern business allows disorder, it cannot be individually expressive disorder, it must be carefully regimented and designed to communicate the corporate message, not a personal one.
The dot com bust has given added credence to those who actually advocate this kind of enforced conformity - they point to a free form, more open dot com workplaces as a symptom or cause of the crash, and are using it to crush any new proposal to create a more humanized, comfortable workplace. Just my two cents. Great movie if you haven't seen it.
"PACs like these" have regained some influence due to Campaign Finance Reform (CFR). A proper political action committee (PAC) raises "hard" (federally regulated) money from individuals with a maximum of $5,000 per year per person. They have had real difficulty competing with the 527 Organizations, state soft money pacs, and national party soft money accounts in recent years. CFR neuters most uses of soft money (including running ads within 60 days of an election) thereby making providers of hard money (like PACs) more influential again.
The doubling of the hard money individual limits (to effectively $8,000 per household) does cut the value of PACs vis-à-vis wealthy individuals, (PACs can donate a total of $10,000 during the same period) but they will regain some of the influence lost in recent years. 10 years ago you would be lucky to trade a national committee 10 cents on the dollar soft money for hard, now, they actually prefer soft money - and that is what CFR has changed.
This all being said, I have often argued for more active involvement of the (for lack of a better term) geek community in the Washington process. I was extremely disappointed in the EFF's effort, they never evidenced a real understanding of how the policy process works (and no oh cynical one, it is not all about money) and in some ways seemed to get carried away with their own feelings of self-importance. Just because you are the EFF doesn't mean you need to be involved with every tech-related issue - if there is no palatable solution, stay out of that coalition and work on the reasons why the "geek" solution was not on the table.
Groups like DigitalConsumer prove that there are rich geeks out there to provide high level funding support for these efforts. You need to organize, agree on a set of core principles, (which I applaud these gentlemen for starting with) and then have an open mind and approach DC like any other system - it has rules and processes that can be worked to your advantage - don't be above getting into the policy debates and make use of every tool at your disposal = direct lobbying, grass roots outreach, earned media, fundraising, and coalition building.
A few thoughts:
1) A well designed effort could win over teachers and the teachers unions (very powerful groups in DC and at the local level) to many of our causes - The restrictions being discussed will make gathering teaching materials significantly more difficult, MS prices, even at the educational level, often stop teachers from using technology for budget reasons, and (we're in the real world here) teachers are common and accomplished pirates - they are doing it for educational purposes, but they are often making additional copies just the same. The idea of criminal liability for making sure that they have enough (and a few back-up copies) of a particular educational program, or sharing a password to an information service that they want the students to use, may just move a few to our side.
2) Begin an organized program of hill office visits. Given to the tech concentration in Northern Virginia, I cannot believe that we don't have a regular flow of sympathetic 22-60 year old geeks tramping through the area on business on a regular basis. Design materials, teach them the message, and coordinate visits to their home state Senators and Congressmen. You (yes you geek boy) will get a meeting with the policy making staff members of for your member just for the asking. As a general rule, if you are a constituent, you can get a meeting with staff. If you are informative and well behaved, other members of your group will also get those meetings. As this trickle becomes a flood you WILL get attention. Politicized hill staffers can sense a new organized constituency like sharks smell blood in the water.
while we are going to increase our use of robots, even with weapons, they are fundamentally more destructive and less discriminating than a human soldier, even under human control Despite what many might think of the military, they are hesitant to introduce technologies that make the killing more indiscriminent. Hesitant does not mean they don't just that they prefer more surgical solutions.
Besides, I can't remember who wrote it, but there was a great sci-fi story about how the military went entirely over to robots, then satan came, they defeated him on judgement day, and only the robots ascended to heaven, the human generals were left behind.
I'm not sure what your objection is. We are talking nanotech here. There will be paired detectors/emitters covering the entire suit, with some kind of massive processing overhead to decide which emitter matches which dectector at any one moment, but if it works from one direction, it works from all of them.
It would certainly not be perfect invisibility, more likely it would involve a ghostly center mass with an apparent but blurry outline. You couldn't hide standing in the middle of a room, but a soldier, already trainded to move with stealth would be harder to hit, and effectively invisible in low visibility situations.
Even so, I'd rather have incredibly effective body armour that protected from blast energy and didn't restrict movement. If the only way to kill an American soldier was a face shot, enemy morale would drop quite quickly. It's always a bummer when the guy you shot 5 times just keeps coming.
We are funding a lot of little projects all over the country to address the power issue. This is the fundamental strenght of the United States in defense technology - rather then one, bloated, ultimately futile bureaucratically directed program we give seed funding to hundreds of research groups at hundreds of different Universities, each pursuing their own take on the problem, insulated from the bias and arguements of other teams. The funding commands ensure that there is not significant duplication of effort.
In the end this increases substantially the chance of making the many physics, chemistry, engineering and materials breakthroughs that are necessary to make this technology a reality. 9 times out of 10 I'll be you that it's the materials engineer at Southern Mississippi State (for example) who didn't have a Harvard Department head to tell him "that will never work" who will make the micropower system a reality.
FYI, Sony has a lobbying shop. It is first and foremost the "Sony Music" lobbying shop, the reps are IP specialists. The consumer electronics industry, despite its' size financially, has a very limited DC presence with one trade group doing most of the heavy lifting (and not very well)
great suggestion, despite my own rather central role in the unfortunate way we do business over here, I have always advocated public financing as the answer. $1 per voter, per federal office holder should do the trick. Regretably, it is a non-stater because the same people who thought term limits were such a good idea constantly call it "welfare for politicians". Public financing fits perfectly in a capitalist democracy, as it allows pols to function in the market, while isolating political influence from the marketplace. I don't necessarily agree with you that more parties is a sign of health - with the greens on the margins here we have self-satisified enviros who have no need to compromise their (sometimes) over-the-top views because they are not integrated with likeminded (but more reasonable) progressives in a larger party. If you haven't take a look at Anthony Downs original work on spatial voting and the effect of multiple parties on an electorate. On the other hand, I'm a moderate and therefore like the mainstreaming influence of a two party system - I will say that as the most stable capitalist democracy in the 20th century, I believe that two party system may be one of the pillars of that strength (that and enormous natural resource wealth and physical isolation - so I don't get too carried away)
The limits are $2,000 per person, per cycle ($1,000 per election - a cycle is a primary and general election) And $25,000 per year (not per cycle) per person. This global limit is supposed to restrict the influence of particularly wealthy individuals who have since turned to soft money. Soft money is, by definition, an unregulated contribution. Mc-F simply expands the sphere of what is regulated (which may also cause its' legal troubles, but we'll jump off that bridge when we come to it.)
More importanly, you are right, the vast majority of Americans (99.5%) do not get involved as donors in the political process - even writing $50 checks. It was back in the "good old days" when everything was perfect, the government was small, and the political system was about constitutional ideals, that the term "money is the mothers milk of politics" was coined. In any market based human system (and that means almost any system because throughout history we have naturally organized ourselves into markets) money will be involved in politics. There are times that the level of honesty will vary, but as long as money can in any way be spent to advance a cause or candidate, it will be part of the process.
If you want to oppose the SSSCA, get organized and get to work. With 300,000 active/.ers, and probably 100,000 that could agree on opposition to this power grab, you could have a substanial political force. I know it would violate the sl/cr/h/acker ethos on any number of levels but you just might do some good.
The history of handtools? sounds intersting, when is it on (and on and on and on and on - this is the History Channel after all: "If it's good enough to show once, it's good enough to show a hundred times")
Good point on both, but in each case you have entered into a regulatory regime - with a government agency - that provides your company with benefits (a safe, trusted drug market) or (defense contracts), in return for operating in such a way that supports government oversight and accountability standards. In other words, it's one thing for the gov't to require paperwork controls when the situation involves public health or national defense, it's quite another to hand that power over to an NGO so they can squeeze every last buck out of the marketplace.
This I realize, without getting too deeply into it, I am occasionally in the middle of creating that intent. In this situation, much of the case law applies to pre-digital IP cases. Thank you for the case cites though, research resources are a little tied up these days. Under current application of the law, the potential jeopardy to businesspeople far outweighs the potential harm to the IP holders. Poor paperwork procedures, disaster, or malice result not just in loss of value of a software license, but substantial financial liability.
Microsoft (to use an example) has numerous ways to identify individual copies of its' software, including coding a unique ID number into each copy. In addition, boxes or discs server a prima facia evidence of a license (yes, original disks can be shifted from business to business but that doesn't present enough of a danger to place the additional burden on the businessperson.)
The law must assume honesty on the part of businesspeople. To place a legal burden of proof on (often) very small businesses when contending with a few very large corporations lends credence to those who claim that the deck is stacked against the businessperson. Come to think of it, that's pretty good rhetoric to move this thing along......
That's not the point. The reason it doesn't get to court, it appears, is that even in court the defendant is forced to prove that every copy of its' software is properly licensed, no allowances for flighty employees, bad record-keeping, or loss of records in flood/fire/weasel mishap. The accuser should have to prove that a unlicensed piece of software was being used - particularly given the incredibly intrusive access they have to the defendants operations.
The only body generally allowed to hold you responsible for lost paperwork is the IRS, and we regularly knock them about the head to the point where they've become a bit timid about abusing this power. Delegating this kind of power to a NGO was never Congressional intent, that I can promise you.
Trying to draw on group expertise here - can someone tell me what provisions of which law(s) lay the burden of proof on the the businessman, and not on the accusor?
This sounds like a provision that got slipped through when no one was looking, and the BSA has managed to keep it off the agenda ever since. I imagine the US Chamber of Commerce would get some support from their members to make this law a little more balanced. It's not that I support IP abuse, but the sheer arrogance of a guilty until proven innocent presumption in any piece of legislation is too galling to let pass .
If someone can get me the information (preferably original bill and USC reference) I will happily see it to a place where it can do some good.
Alright Chuckie, I'll rise to the bait. The town is located in the core area of Taliban support. As stated in your link, the villagers disposed of the evidence, then started making charges. The former benficiaries of the Taliban's largess say one thing, the U.S military says another.
Gee, if it's all right with you, I'm going to take our guys word for it. I mean, I know it's a stretch, because we all know American soldiers are genocidal psychopaths, unlike the peace loving angels that are the armed men of every other nation, but just this once I'm going out on a limb.
It was called Close Combat (1-5) and it died for lack of interest. Troop morale, weapon effects on the battle environment, terrain and cover, and tactical objectives were all modeled.
The UN charter... Does not require Security Council approval before attacking a UN member, and of course there is the open question of whether Serbia had a real claim on the Yugoslav UN seat or if the Bosnians, who invited us in, could do so as a part of a member state in insurrection - NO VIOLATION
The Geneva Convention.... Does not ban cluster bombs, and such a ban was expressly rejected - NO VIOLATION
The Vienna Convention.... Does prohibit securing a treaty through threat of force -In times of peace- but as Serbia was at war with the other parties to the treaty, we were within our rights to state that we would enter the war on their opponents side if they didn't sign - NO VIOLATION
The Constitution... Makes the President the Commander in Chief, and gives him express permission to deploy U.S. forces as he will. Even the War Powers Act (not part of the constitution Chester) allows the President to deploy troops at will as long as he informs Congress (afterward) and gets comgressional approval within 60 days, or some other extented period as set by Congress - NO VIOLATION
The War Powers Act... already said, oh, and it's 60 days, and Congress did authorize military action in Serbia - NO VIOLATION
The Prime Directive... prohibits Federation Officers from interfering with the affairs of a non-spacefaring planet. 1. We are not members of the federation, 2. We are spacefaring (though the definition is debatable, 3. We are residents of the planet in question, so no violation is possible - NO VIOLATION
Well, nice try, but you might want to stick to subject areas you know something about and leave foreign policy to the professionals. Unless you'd like me to come over and try to set up BSD on your system, and maybe reconfigure your Apache server.
Slightly more on topic - forget SE Asia, some of you bright boys should be able to set up a small (less than 10k population) Carribean island as a data haven - The income would far outstrip any loss from US economic moves, and despite your cynicism, we would never walk in with troops to shut down some servers.
I began playing Lineage months ago because I heard that Garriot et al. were joining the team. It has been the most regrettable, unpleasent gaming experience I've ever had (and I even tried playing Battlecruiser....
The NCI (Origin) staff is unable to make any changes to the game mechanics without approval of the Korean staff, who could care less about the hundreds of U.S. users vs. the millions (yes) of Korean users. The game becomes unplayable after every server update as the original players exploit the inevitable bugs and Garriot and crew just wave their arms and say "we'll try to fix it".
Lineage really had promise - there are some nice elements - but NCSoft has made it impossible to manage the on-line world, leading to no end of player frustration - hard work wasted, characters deleted, and quests/missions broken.
Do yourself a favor and find a new god, Lord British has sold his soul again.
I have been noodling this idea for years, now looks like the time...
Washington D.C. has these old fire call boxes on almore every block - 5 foot tall cast iron things with a 1ft by 1ft by 5 inch opening where the call box used to be. The posts themselves have (had) connections to wiring conduits (to reach the fire dept).
How difficult/expensive would it be to install an 802.11 node in every box, blanketing the (often very low income) city with wireless access for the price of an 802.11 card. The nodes themselves could wire into any one of a number of broadband networks now strung through the city.
What are the interference/spectrum issues (I've heard there are some problems with this broad an implementation of 802.11)?
Assuming a fairly direct shot to a broadband pipe directly beneath these posts, what would be the acutual cost of setting up the node and wiring it into the network?
I'm sure there are many more questions, this is just off the top of my head.
Slashdot Mirror
Must.....resist....urge.....to.....keep......respo nding.....to.....this......thread.....arghhhh
Yes, I saw him on BoB, thought it was spectacular work, showing the human side of a soldier driven to alcohol by what he has seen and lived through. Much easier to just play the drunk (as mentioned above.) On the other hand, I think his work on the Practice is borderline catatonic - but so is the writing so I'm not really sure it's fair to blame him. What the man truly does well is subversive - in his look, his attitude and his tone - a good agent should be able to find him roles where that could really shine. Heck, he's one of the few actors I can think of who could have carried off DeNiro's character part in Brazil
Re. the post just above this on, The Organization Man is INDESPENSIBLE reading for anyone who wants to understand the culture we live in today. It lays out the genesis of the modern capitalist culture from a individual and organizational level. The problem is what innovation will ever see this model change? It could be the foundation for our culture for a good long time.
BTW - I am very pro-capitalism, but one cannot look at life within the current corporate structure and think this is good for society long-term IMO.
A great dark comedy flick, particularly for those who think that the old comics (winters and berle) only did broad, popular comedy.
Look at the cast:
Jonathan Winters
Milton Berle
John Gielgud
James Coburn
Liberace
Roddy McDowall
Just the idea of a movie including all of these guys is funny.
don't mess with mans sig. Yeah, its a paraphrase (hence the ... ... as the entire quote wouldn't fit as a sig and (I think) the shortend version communicates the same thought - and hopefully encourages people to seek out and read the story.
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal...in every way
Harrison Bergeron? Vonnegut?
Nope. The Democrat party's vision statement.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>&g t;
Answering the first ? - Yes, the (very) short story influenced my young mind more than most and the fact that he predicted the equality of outcomes movement is, to me, just more evidence of KVs genius.
Answering the second (pudknocker) Anyone who confuses the ravings of liberal naderites with position of the institutional Democratic party deserves the theocratic, conform of be investigated for unAmericanism, socially stratified state they will end up with.
somebody mod this guy up at least informative +1, this is exactly the point - it doesn't have to be grey grey grey out there, and only a sadist would fail to care about its' effect on the people who must live that way day in, day out.
The Victorian and post victorian office (as opposed to factory or farm, entirely different issues) was more closely related to the home (specifically sitting rooms and entertaining spaces) then to the modern antiseptic workplace.
While this is partially attributable to materials (wood furniture rather then metal which became more practical after WW2) and other design changes (blinds vs. draperies, industrial vs. traditional carpeting) the fact is that even the most official spaces (government offices) or cutting edge industries (the automakers of the time) had office suites that more closely resembled an entertaining space then a modern office.
Many of the dystopian visions of the 30's had office spaces being converted into a regimented facsimile of the factory floor (not too unlike todays cubical farms - this was a vision of a dark future, not an indication of the present. The the mass secretarial pools needed to run the WWII war effort may be the point of origin for the modern office space, as they introduced metrics of efficiency and hourly productivity to what had been a "professional" occupation.
being an afficionado of dark comedy, I have long been a fan of Office Space. I may be one of five buyers of the (poorly produced) DVD. The performances, particularly Ron Livingstone (hugely underrated actor) and Diedrich Bader (almost unrecognizable) make it a real gem.
On the subject of red staplers, why has the post WWII workplace insisted on mono-color conformity? It seems almost a conspiracy to ensure that office workers be isolated from as much visual stimulation as possible. Is it so important that the occasional visitor/client not see a single clash of colors that offends their sensibility? It would not revolutionize the drudgery of the workplace, but more allowances for individuality and color can't help but improve the condiditon of those who must exist in that environment from day to day.
The whole "flair" concept at the Houlihans type restaurant carries the same theme. Even where modern business allows disorder, it cannot be individually expressive disorder, it must be carefully regimented and designed to communicate the corporate message, not a personal one.
The dot com bust has given added credence to those who actually advocate this kind of enforced conformity - they point to a free form, more open dot com workplaces as a symptom or cause of the crash, and are using it to crush any new proposal to create a more humanized, comfortable workplace. Just my two cents. Great movie if you haven't seen it.
"PACs like these" have regained some influence due to Campaign Finance Reform (CFR). A proper political action committee (PAC) raises "hard" (federally regulated) money from individuals with a maximum of $5,000 per year per person. They have had real difficulty competing with the 527 Organizations, state soft money pacs, and national party soft money accounts in recent years. CFR neuters most uses of soft money (including running ads within 60 days of an election) thereby making providers of hard money (like PACs) more influential again.
The doubling of the hard money individual limits (to effectively $8,000 per household) does cut the value of PACs vis-à-vis wealthy individuals, (PACs can donate a total of $10,000 during the same period) but they will regain some of the influence lost in recent years. 10 years ago you would be lucky to trade a national committee 10 cents on the dollar soft money for hard, now, they actually prefer soft money - and that is what CFR has changed.
This all being said, I have often argued for more active involvement of the (for lack of a better term) geek community in the Washington process. I was extremely disappointed in the EFF's effort, they never evidenced a real understanding of how the policy process works (and no oh cynical one, it is not all about money) and in some ways seemed to get carried away with their own feelings of self-importance. Just because you are the EFF doesn't mean you need to be involved with every tech-related issue - if there is no palatable solution, stay out of that coalition and work on the reasons why the "geek" solution was not on the table.
Groups like DigitalConsumer prove that there are rich geeks out there to provide high level funding support for these efforts. You need to organize, agree on a set of core principles, (which I applaud these gentlemen for starting with) and then have an open mind and approach DC like any other system - it has rules and processes that can be worked to your advantage - don't be above getting into the policy debates and make use of every tool at your disposal = direct lobbying, grass roots outreach, earned media, fundraising, and coalition building.
A few thoughts:
1) A well designed effort could win over teachers and the teachers unions (very powerful groups in DC and at the local level) to many of our causes - The restrictions being discussed will make gathering teaching materials significantly more difficult, MS prices, even at the educational level, often stop teachers from using technology for budget reasons, and (we're in the real world here) teachers are common and accomplished pirates - they are doing it for educational purposes, but they are often making additional copies just the same. The idea of criminal liability for making sure that they have enough (and a few back-up copies) of a particular educational program, or sharing a password to an information service that they want the students to use, may just move a few to our side.
2) Begin an organized program of hill office visits. Given to the tech concentration in Northern Virginia, I cannot believe that we don't have a regular flow of sympathetic 22-60 year old geeks tramping through the area on business on a regular basis. Design materials, teach them the message, and coordinate visits to their home state Senators and Congressmen. You (yes you geek boy) will get a meeting with the policy making staff members of for your member just for the asking. As a general rule, if you are a constituent, you can get a meeting with staff. If you are informative and well behaved, other members of your group will also get those meetings. As this trickle becomes a flood you WILL get attention. Politicized hill staffers can sense a new organized constituency like sharks smell blood in the water.
I will post more on this when I find a minute.
while we are going to increase our use of robots, even with weapons, they are fundamentally more destructive and less discriminating than a human soldier, even under human control Despite what many might think of the military, they are hesitant to introduce technologies that make the killing more indiscriminent. Hesitant does not mean they don't just that they prefer more surgical solutions.
Besides, I can't remember who wrote it, but there was a great sci-fi story about how the military went entirely over to robots, then satan came, they defeated him on judgement day, and only the robots ascended to heaven, the human generals were left behind.
I'm not sure what your objection is. We are talking nanotech here. There will be paired detectors/emitters covering the entire suit, with some kind of massive processing overhead to decide which emitter matches which dectector at any one moment, but if it works from one direction, it works from all of them.
It would certainly not be perfect invisibility, more likely it would involve a ghostly center mass with an apparent but blurry outline. You couldn't hide standing in the middle of a room, but a soldier, already trainded to move with stealth would be harder to hit, and effectively invisible in low visibility situations.
Even so, I'd rather have incredibly effective body armour that protected from blast energy and didn't restrict movement. If the only way to kill an American soldier was a face shot, enemy morale would drop quite quickly. It's always a bummer when the guy you shot 5 times just keeps coming.
We are funding a lot of little projects all over the country to address the power issue. This is the fundamental strenght of the United States in defense technology - rather then one, bloated, ultimately futile bureaucratically directed program we give seed funding to hundreds of research groups at hundreds of different Universities, each pursuing their own take on the problem, insulated from the bias and arguements of other teams. The funding commands ensure that there is not significant duplication of effort.
In the end this increases substantially the chance of making the many physics, chemistry, engineering and materials breakthroughs that are necessary to make this technology a reality. 9 times out of 10 I'll be you that it's the materials engineer at Southern Mississippi State (for example) who didn't have a Harvard Department head to tell him "that will never work" who will make the micropower system a reality.
I'll take the watch
FYI, Sony has a lobbying shop. It is first and foremost the "Sony Music" lobbying shop, the reps are IP specialists. The consumer electronics industry, despite its' size financially, has a very limited DC presence with one trade group doing most of the heavy lifting (and not very well)
great suggestion, despite my own rather central role in the unfortunate way we do business over here, I have always advocated public financing as the answer. $1 per voter, per federal office holder should do the trick. Regretably, it is a non-stater because the same people who thought term limits were such a good idea constantly call it "welfare for politicians". Public financing fits perfectly in a capitalist democracy, as it allows pols to function in the market, while isolating political influence from the marketplace. I don't necessarily agree with you that more parties is a sign of health - with the greens on the margins here we have self-satisified enviros who have no need to compromise their (sometimes) over-the-top views because they are not integrated with likeminded (but more reasonable) progressives in a larger party. If you haven't take a look at Anthony Downs original work on spatial voting and the effect of multiple parties on an electorate. On the other hand, I'm a moderate and therefore like the mainstreaming influence of a two party system - I will say that as the most stable capitalist democracy in the 20th century, I believe that two party system may be one of the pillars of that strength (that and enormous natural resource wealth and physical isolation - so I don't get too carried away)
The limits are $2,000 per person, per cycle ($1,000 per election - a cycle is a primary and general election) And $25,000 per year (not per cycle) per person. This global limit is supposed to restrict the influence of particularly wealthy individuals who have since turned to soft money. Soft money is, by definition, an unregulated contribution. Mc-F simply expands the sphere of what is regulated (which may also cause its' legal troubles, but we'll jump off that bridge when we come to it.)
/.ers, and probably 100,000 that could agree on opposition to this power grab, you could have a substanial political force. I know it would violate the sl/cr/h/acker ethos on any number of levels but you just might do some good.
More importanly, you are right, the vast majority of Americans (99.5%) do not get involved as donors in the political process - even writing $50 checks. It was back in the "good old days" when everything was perfect, the government was small, and the political system was about constitutional ideals, that the term "money is the mothers milk of politics" was coined. In any market based human system (and that means almost any system because throughout history we have naturally organized ourselves into markets) money will be involved in politics. There are times that the level of honesty will vary, but as long as money can in any way be spent to advance a cause or candidate, it will be part of the process.
If you want to oppose the SSSCA, get organized and get to work. With 300,000 active
The history of handtools? sounds intersting, when is it on (and on and on and on and on - this is the History Channel after all: "If it's good enough to show once, it's good enough to show a hundred times")
Good point on both, but in each case you have entered into a regulatory regime - with a government agency - that provides your company with benefits (a safe, trusted drug market) or (defense contracts), in return for operating in such a way that supports government oversight and accountability standards. In other words, it's one thing for the gov't to require paperwork controls when the situation involves public health or national defense, it's quite another to hand that power over to an NGO so they can squeeze every last buck out of the marketplace.
This I realize, without getting too deeply into it, I am occasionally in the middle of creating that intent. In this situation, much of the case law applies to pre-digital IP cases. Thank you for the case cites though, research resources are a little tied up these days. Under current application of the law, the potential jeopardy to businesspeople far outweighs the potential harm to the IP holders. Poor paperwork procedures, disaster, or malice result not just in loss of value of a software license, but substantial financial liability.
Microsoft (to use an example) has numerous ways to identify individual copies of its' software, including coding a unique ID number into each copy. In addition, boxes or discs server a prima facia evidence of a license (yes, original disks can be shifted from business to business but that doesn't present enough of a danger to place the additional burden on the businessperson.)
The law must assume honesty on the part of businesspeople. To place a legal burden of proof on (often) very small businesses when contending with a few very large corporations lends credence to those who claim that the deck is stacked against the businessperson. Come to think of it, that's pretty good rhetoric to move this thing along......
That's not the point. The reason it doesn't get to court, it appears, is that even in court the defendant is forced to prove that every copy of its' software is properly licensed, no allowances for flighty employees, bad record-keeping, or loss of records in flood/fire/weasel mishap. The accuser should have to prove that a unlicensed piece of software was being used - particularly given the incredibly intrusive access they have to the defendants operations.
The only body generally allowed to hold you responsible for lost paperwork is the IRS, and we regularly knock them about the head to the point where they've become a bit timid about abusing this power. Delegating this kind of power to a NGO was never Congressional intent, that I can promise you.
Trying to draw on group expertise here - can someone tell me what provisions of which law(s) lay the burden of proof on the the businessman, and not on the accusor?
This sounds like a provision that got slipped through when no one was looking, and the BSA has managed to keep it off the agenda ever since. I imagine the US Chamber of Commerce would get some support from their members to make this law a little more balanced. It's not that I support IP abuse, but the sheer arrogance of a guilty until proven innocent presumption in any piece of legislation is too galling to let pass .
If someone can get me the information (preferably original bill and USC reference) I will happily see it to a place where it can do some good.
Alright Chuckie, I'll rise to the bait. The town is located in the core area of Taliban support. As stated in your link, the villagers disposed of the evidence, then started making charges. The former benficiaries of the Taliban's largess say one thing, the U.S military says another.
Gee, if it's all right with you, I'm going to take our guys word for it. I mean, I know it's a stretch, because we all know American soldiers are genocidal psychopaths, unlike the peace loving angels that are the armed men of every other nation, but just this once I'm going out on a limb.
It was called Close Combat (1-5) and it died for lack of interest. Troop morale, weapon effects on the battle environment, terrain and cover, and tactical objectives were all modeled.
hmm....
The UN charter... Does not require Security Council approval before attacking a UN member, and of course there is the open question of whether Serbia had a real claim on the Yugoslav UN seat or if the Bosnians, who invited us in, could do so as a part of a member state in insurrection - NO VIOLATION
The Geneva Convention.... Does not ban cluster bombs, and such a ban was expressly rejected - NO VIOLATION
The Vienna Convention.... Does prohibit securing a treaty through threat of force -In times of peace- but as Serbia was at war with the other parties to the treaty, we were within our rights to state that we would enter the war on their opponents side if they didn't sign - NO VIOLATION
The Constitution... Makes the President the Commander in Chief, and gives him express permission to deploy U.S. forces as he will. Even the War Powers Act (not part of the constitution Chester) allows the President to deploy troops at will as long as he informs Congress (afterward) and gets comgressional approval within 60 days, or some other extented period as set by Congress - NO VIOLATION
The War Powers Act... already said, oh, and it's 60 days, and Congress did authorize military action in Serbia - NO VIOLATION
The Prime Directive... prohibits Federation Officers from interfering with the affairs of a non-spacefaring planet. 1. We are not members of the federation, 2. We are spacefaring (though the definition is debatable, 3. We are residents of the planet in question, so no violation is possible - NO VIOLATION
Well, nice try, but you might want to stick to subject areas you know something about and leave foreign policy to the professionals. Unless you'd like me to come over and try to set up BSD on your system, and maybe reconfigure your Apache server.
Slightly more on topic - forget SE Asia, some of you bright boys should be able to set up a small (less than 10k population) Carribean island as a data haven - The income would far outstrip any loss from US economic moves, and despite your cynicism, we would never walk in with troops to shut down some servers.
I began playing Lineage months ago because I heard that Garriot et al. were joining the team. It has been the most regrettable, unpleasent gaming experience I've ever had (and I even tried playing Battlecruiser....
The NCI (Origin) staff is unable to make any changes to the game mechanics without approval of the Korean staff, who could care less about the hundreds of U.S. users vs. the millions (yes) of Korean users. The game becomes unplayable after every server update as the original players exploit the inevitable bugs and Garriot and crew just wave their arms and say "we'll try to fix it".
Lineage really had promise - there are some nice elements - but NCSoft has made it impossible to manage the on-line world, leading to no end of player frustration - hard work wasted, characters deleted, and quests/missions broken.
Do yourself a favor and find a new god, Lord British has sold his soul again.
I have been noodling this idea for years, now looks like the time...
Washington D.C. has these old fire call boxes on almore every block - 5 foot tall cast iron things with a 1ft by 1ft by 5 inch opening where the call box used to be. The posts themselves have (had) connections to wiring conduits (to reach the fire dept).
How difficult/expensive would it be to install an 802.11 node in every box, blanketing the (often very low income) city with wireless access for the price of an 802.11 card. The nodes themselves could wire into any one of a number of broadband networks now strung through the city.
What are the interference/spectrum issues (I've heard there are some problems with this broad an implementation of 802.11)?
Assuming a fairly direct shot to a broadband pipe directly beneath these posts, what would be the acutual cost of setting up the node and wiring it into the network?
I'm sure there are many more questions, this is just off the top of my head.
Well, Jack is almost 80, and Hillary is a lesbian, so I think the likelihood of the anti-christ being spawned anytime soon is minimal.