Let me tell you a little story about a recent experience I've had with Linux (Ubuntu to be specific) that should give you an idea on why, I think, Linux is something of a failure on the desktop.
I've been using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS for a long time. Well, 3 years. You see, Ubuntu only supports (as in, will fix security bugs) a version of their distro for a maximum of three years--and even then, you have to use a Long Term Service release to see that. Compare that to XP, which shows a much longer period of support. Oh, you say, but an upgrade is free. Well, let's talk about that upgrade to 12.04 LTS.
On my system, I had to d/l ~6GB of package updates for Ubuntu itself and then another ~3GB for "Third Party Sources"--let's ignore those "Third Party Sources" for the moment since that's its own thing. Most of that comes down to the point that, as another poster pointed out, libraries go through regular ABI breakage. Hence, a LTS version can't readily upgrade a library progressively, indefinitely. Instead, a break, in the form of a new distro version, or some heavily-lifting constant backporting (what Debian does) has to be done--the latter of which merely delays the inevitable--which is a very arduous process. Why? Well, the biggest reasons are as follows:
The Installation, once started, can't really be aborted. Because of the interconnected nature of Linux distros, which package managers help manage, there's no way to do a clean break to pause and resume progress. It helps none that Linux itself does a piss poor job of supporting things like hibernation, replay ability, or the general framework of supporting containers so one could, given enough disk space, simply have the older and newer distro installed at the same time and it be almost trivial to support resuming. Instead, one is left with an installation that could take a day or more--more so because changed config replacement/keeping isn't grouped so the installation will repeatedly stall unless you're willing to nurse a 5+ hour install. And that doesn't even get into the obvious stuff--ndiswrapper either moved packages or something which resulted in a lack of wireless support on my newly installed distro version which rather hampers finding out where it moved to online and downloading the new ndiswrapper package. Thankfully, due to a "feature" of older kernel images not being removed when their package is removed--which violates the concept of a package manager managing things (which further brings up the subject of configuration files, but I digress)--I was able to resolve the issue. Meanwhile, umount still segfaults on hal-based mounts.:/
Now, I'm sure people could argue "well, that's just an issue with Ubuntu" or "I've never had problems with upgrading my distro". But, the point is, the underlying architecture isn't robust for dealing with the sort of issues endemic to the FOSS world of library upgrades or even drivers moving/disappearing. And the argument that "well, Windows/Mac OS X is no better/is worse" does nothing about showing why Linux is better and something people should want to choose. And I do agree Linux is better. It's just marginally better in a lot of areas and those better areas are aggravating at times and, at least in short bursts, worse than the alternatives.
Well that's exactly why such profiles exist. You can go into Settings and manually enter proxy details; the configuration files exist exactly so that such a thing can happen "automagically".
Um, that's pretty much the opposite of "automagically".
But the solution, what is the solution? You cannot remove this setting from the settings panel as it's too widespread a need. You could make profiles harder to install but then enterprises cannot properly configure user devices.
Well, the answer is obvious. If an enterprise need such functionality for a set of phones, it effectively wants to administrate over the phones above and beyond what Apple offers. The leaves two options: Apple can sell phones to enterprises where they can do an at-install profile load that allows traffic redirects or Apple can have enterprises pay them to store such profiles on their servers and automagically load it up for phones bought/associated with an enterprise.
The only thing I can think of is to flag a big warning around "this profile will re-direct all your internet traffic (including porn) to XXX domain, is that OK?" on installation of a profile that contains a proxy setting. That would not really disrupt enterprise use and in fact would be good for users to remind them their company is now seeing all their traffic.
And that's no real solution. Honestly, at one level I'm surprised Apple allows web traffic redirecting precisely because it may be possible to use it as part of a spoofing attack to allow a "malicious" user to gain "unauthorized" access on their phone. I mean, I presume Apple uses things like signing keys and goes out of its way to do checks as many places as it can, but I'd imagine Apple would try to hamper (and it'd only be an inconvenience really) anything that could even potentially be used to get out of their walled garden.
Direct administration by Apple is not practical though, as I stated there is still a workaround through manually setting which you can also socially engineer a user into doing.
Which is only true because Apple included the feature and has yet to remove it.
This is simply a configuration profile that users download directly from the company and install themselves. Read my other posts giving more detail.
Are you against people being able to install custom configuration profiles? I have used one myself to route traffic from my phone to a debugging HTTP proxy, very handy...
Actually, yes. The whole point of a walled garden is that I, the user, shouldn't have to install "custom configuration profiles". If such behavior is at all warranted, it should be accessible automagically and appropriately. Put another way, if it's not okay for an App Store app to do it--presumably on the basis that it's somehow unsafe or unwanted by the user--then why should it be doable another way. I mean, your whole "route traffic from my phone to a debugging HTTP proxy" sounds inside the scope of development which, you know, developers should reasonably want access to but that translates into a non-common-user experience and hence isn't reasonably in the scope of the average user--and for which if such things were actually needed, they should be administered by Apple as the caregiver of the walled garden. Compare this to to a future version of Windows Defender reverting hosts file changes and the outcry against such things precisely because the PC is the antithesis of a walled garden, even though Windows computers are otherwise used by the common user.
I wonder where you get the idea that Lucifer is a messenger of God. In the Bible, Lucifer now called Satan, is Gods adversary.
Lucifer, the Fallen Angel. Ie, Lucifer once was a messenger of God. Although it sounds like he never left heaven (at least until he became a fallen angel), so I'm not sure if he would have the power to speak to man from there.
When 2 messengers purporting to come from God say the opposite, which one are you going to believe? Moses, a messenger from God was told that murder is evil and wrong. Satan by contrast, is called a murderer and liar from the beginning.
Uh, no. Moses might well have said not to murder, but there's plenty of prescriptions for violations that warranted "death by stoning". Let us also not forget the many, many times that God sanctioned the genocide of regions (Canan comes to mind) under the logic that God bestowed the (already occupied) land to the Israelis and hence it was acceptable for them to wage war to obtain that owed land. Besides, two things are true: one, that Satan was not always called a murderer and a liar and two, there aren't always two or more messengers standing by to tell you what is God's or the King's plan.
The King that is going to rule in righteousness over the whole earth is named Jesus. You can read about it in Psalm 2 among other places in the Bible where this is foretold. He will have complete unfettered authority over the whole world. Jerusalem will be the capital city of planet Earth. Jesus is God and human simultaneously and is all good only. He will rule with absolute power and absolute integrity and absolute justice.
As much as that may be so, my point was that simply being "good" isn't enough to guarantee righteous rule precisely because without absolute power and, more importantly, absolute clairvoyance, it is quite possible to be manipulated, lied to, etc and to have that power abused. In the world of humans, that means people can be maimed, killed, or simply be sent away in a fashion to never be found again. Under the rule of a merely omnipotent God without omniscience, the best that could be done would be to do things like reverse time to a point before such abuses occurred and then guarantee they don't occur again. That'd still leave the evil deed having been done once. Meanwhile, with mere omniscience but without omnipotence, it might be impossible to manipulate the situation, no matter how much time is given, to produce the desired results. I mean, man was created in the image of God and look how quickly man turned to sin? Hell, the very concept of a fallen angel, a being created perfect who would then turn sinful, rather undermines the concept of there being some magical unity or that those in heaven would stay good indefinitely--although just not having anyone deemed worthy fixes that little dilemma. But, that's digressing from the obvious point that really wonders why Jesus didn't just start his eternal heavily paradise for man back in 0AD.
Having such power concentrated in one person is only perilous if that person is evil.
The most good, wholesome, upright, and noble king who is locked away in his tower and his name used to justify unspeakable evil, which in one form or another has occurred repeatedly throughout history, rather contradicts that viewpoint. Now, when you start granting the person absolute clairvoyance to avoid such troubles... Of course, you could also argue that "well, it's not the king who is actually doing the harm" but the quote was "that much power in one person is very perilous to those around him"--ie, the core problem is the vestment of power in a single man, not necessarily the outright acts of that man. I mean, if Lucifer, the messenger of God, says to kill someone, wouldn't you do it? Oh, right, another great example of how sometimes you can't trust the messenger.
I wouldn't go that far. Or do we call news reporters "spies" as well?
News reporters have neither the inclination nor the means to look over our shoulder every minute of the day while using any particular device or do any particular activity, as a point--with the exception of specific people of interest. If they did, yes, we'd call them spies.
More to the point, whenever we connect to another computer or information storage device, information is collected. Our own smart phones do that when it connects to a WIFI hotspot and retains that information for at least the duration of the connection. Web servers continuously collect information from clients. That's one of the ways you prevent a DDOS attack by dropping clients known to make too many requests within a short period.
Well, what do you know, the point that web sites do collect such information is an actual point of contention for precisely the reason that the gathered information can be used to form a picture of a person's browsing habits. This is one reason why there's been such broad discussion about Google and Facebook and the privacy concerns of their users. In fact, it goes to the point that journalists do speak of Google and Facebook "spying" on its users precisely because of the degree of data collection. But, then, I'd presume you recognize that the "collection" being spoke of is more than the transient and necessary stateful information needed for common transaction which is quickly forgotten as a matter of course.
As far back as when the first punch cards were manufactured, computers have been designed to collect and possibly retain information. Hell, even a flesh-and-blood human standing in a corner collects information. That's how we form memories of that hot chick or hunk standing across the street. Now, it would be a different matter if I started following the object of my casual observation. In real life, that would be stalking, and would definitely fall in the category "spying".
And with computers (or license plate cameras), that "flesh-and-blood human standing in a corner collect[ing] information" becomes an impersonal, vast data bank of information. Couple that with fantastic computing power and data mining algorithms, and you have the recipe for the potential for inherent stalking on a massive scale. So, every time it's possible that information is being warehoused, people want to know *before* it gets to the point that the warehouse is full and the data mining begins. But, you know, that's just crazy conspiracy theory stuff. I mean, it's not like some mostly faceless corporation has ever been caught doing such things before... And golly, it's not like the government would buy or coerce a company for that information at a later date to effectively blackmail whoever of the population they need/want to.
...heat produced directly by all human activity combined is tiny..
Even in election years?
Every time a politician blows hot "air", he only releases heat once. But, it's the CO2/legislation that has the long-term, magnifying effect.
PS - I know you're joking, of course. I just think what you say could be made into a good analogy a lot of right-wing anti-government types could be made to understand. But, then, I don't really get the impression a lot of those people actually stop to think about the situation, anyways, since I'm pretty sure they're just reciting dogma. That's not to say the left (or center or whatever direction you choose) doesn't have its own dogma. But, then, most if it seems a lot less ignorant and a lot less harmful. But, then, as we know, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
That sounds innocuous enough - but keep in mind that he actually made GBP35,000/month in 2009 with these activities. Given that they were merely link sites, his hosting costs weren't going to put much of a dent into those figures.
Shh.. I hear there's this website, Google that merely links sites and makes over $1,000,000,000/month in 2010. Oh, right, making money from linking isn't illegal or relevant per se. Of course, Google isn't going around directly encouraging users to upload other people's copyrighted works, but since "inciting to commit copyright infringement" isn't itself a crime AFAIK... Then again, it could be argued to be a form of conspiracy. In any case, linking would seem to be a moot point.
Now I'm not saying that his profiting is what made it illegal (it was illegal either way), or that 4 years in jail is an appropriate sentence - but let's not kid ourselves by suggesting that these site operators are only wishing to give to the world, to provide cultural enrichment to the needy, etc. They most certainly do profit by providing an avenue through which 'piracy' is committed.
Um, and? Do you think most site owners or, hell, copyright owners who make any sort of profit are "only wishing to give to the world, to provide cultural enrichment to the needy, etc"? Fuck no. They're in it for the money as a general point. And why shouldn't they be? It's not there's anything illegal or amoral about trying to make money. The fact that those actions may only incidentally provide cultural enrichment or whatever is really precisely a byproduct of how copyright was written; the fact that violating copyright might actually, even incidentally, have the same effect is both amusing and rather condemns the idea that copyright is necessary. Of course, the hard part is actually knowing if and when cultural enrichment actually is occurring. Personally, I don't think I can hand wave one way or the other about the need or effectiveness of copyright/copyright law in that regard.
That said, under my copyright reform suggestion, linking sites would in fact not be a valid target for legal action. But not because of some misguided 'free speech' concern. ( In case you were referring to the Pussy Riot thing - wow. Did you really just equate the two? If so, you may wish to read up on that case a bit more. It's many times more scary than any piracy-linksite getting targeted is. )
Very true. I only hope the GP was speaking in hyperbole. The whole Pussy Riot case in Russia is absurd.
As a franchise that has grown and evolved over the last 30 years, has all the creative storylines and innovations come full tilt?
Not really, no. The storylines in Mario games have never been particularly creative* and honestly I know of few people who *want* a particularly creative storyline. After all, people don't play Mario games for the story but for the inventive, innovative platformesque game mechanics. To that end, it's hard to believe that all the ideas have been used up.
We expect certain control mechanics, and behaviors.
Its not like they could reboot the franchise or alter the behaviors. How could they make the game different and yet still keep it familiar without alienating their fan base?
Um, they've "reboot[ed]" the franchise effectively plenty of times. In fact, one could argue that that's the basic expectation in every game. As much as there might be common characters and common elements, virtually ever Mario game has been different substantially than the last (with a few exception). It's precisely this reason that so many people love Mario games, actually.
Its not like they can take Mario and make a FPS, although that could be hilarious. Super Mario Bros meets GoldenEye.
Well, people don't expect that. What they do expect is that Mario N isn't Mario M with different levels. If the same game engine is used as a base, it has to include noticeably updated mechanics that help differentiate itself from its predecessor--and I don't mean higher polygon count, greater draw distance, or more light balls. It has nothing to do with changing Mario into a FPS. It does have to do with exploring what all is encompassed in a platformer and expecting Nintendo to innovate within that arena in expected, yet simultaneously surprising, ways. I'd assume that's why the review suggests slowing down Mario releases, to give the development team more time to come up with creative new ideas. I mean, I like Mega Man games and know how repetitive they can get, yet I still love them because I don't have the expectation that they'll be innovative. But Mario games are supposed to feel different.
*And yea, at this point I'd like to detour and note that "Mario" games are now multiple different franchises from party to RPG to whatever. I'm speaking of the platformer line. The RPG line is reasonably creative and has its own little charm, and I'll leave it at that.
Yes, and yet hundreds of thousands of people live in Denver, by choice. Many people in Colorado have lived here their whole lives. And yet they are not a city of cancer-ridden tentacled freaks.
So what does it mean when people like you get freaked out by even lower levels of radiation that obviously harm just about no-one living in Denver their whole lives?
I think you're conflating two different groups of people. The GP was speaking about the type of people who "freaked out" because "nuclear movie disaster" actually happened. It's the same of thing when people "freaked out" about Three Mile Island. The problem was never the amount of radiation that leaked out. Like the GP points out, it's that radiation leaked out out of something that wasn't by design but by accident. It's the same sort of legitimate "freaked out" people had about 9/11 and planes crashing into skyscrapers and the Pentagon and skyscrapers collapsing and people dying.
It means your luddite fear of anything nuclear is utterly stupid, irrational, and you are causing way more harm than good by being freaked out about the tiny levels of radiation present in the area and trying to freakout others too.
And this brings up the second group of people. Journalists, anti-nuclear/Muslim/Afghanistan/whatever, etc groups take a legitimate fear in people and stoke it, either by calmly reporting the truth (which inherently puts a focus on it that drives fear into an already panicking person) or drives up potential worst case scenarios (either to simply drive up readership or to, you know, report the worst case scenario as part of a "see, we told you it could happen" journalistic/anti-whatever clairvoyance). Saying "you don't have reason to be alarmed" just doesn't work because, you know, the people are panicking. It doesn't help when it's clear that people are trying to downplay the significance of an event by covering up what happened/is happening.
I'm not saying that people don't simply combine a little bit of fear and a lot of predisposition or pre-made opinion and stick with it against the adversity of fact and truth. But talking about someone being a "luddite" because they note that a nuclear reactor's design failed resulting in radiation exposure and that's what people are miffed about is clearly wrong headed. It would be much more sensible to be open and honest and spell out (a) actual design plans for worst case scenarios, (b) show how that relates to both natural, on-going risks as well as other similar man-made technology (both the on-going radiation from coal plants and the worst case scenarios), and (c) to stop being a general dick calling people "luddite"s because they don't want to be surprised by stuff even the designers of a potentially deadly thing didn't foresee and plan around.
PS - A bit off-topic, but since I brought it up anyways... The whole Afghanistan/Iraq War thing could have likely been avoided if precisely the above had been followed. Instead of acting shocked and angered that, you know, a huge plane full of fuel could take down a skyscraper, they really should have effectively shrugged it off as yet another terrorist attack no more fundamentally different than the many, many terrorist airplane bombings that had occurred before. It doesn't mean not acting. But it does mean not turning tail based on fear. At the same time, it doesn't mean not being angered at the fundamental senseless death or mourning the loss of life; but, that same logic fundamentally translates into not turning that angry into the senseless death and mourning the loss of life that is inherent in starting wars. In the end, flipping the bird at people who are afraid does no real good because those people will keep searching for someone who will give them an answer they want to stomach; and odds are good it'll be a person who will play their fears instead of helping them overcome those fears. Some of that is unavoidable of course as people too frequently choose the easy route. But your sort of response is simply to turn people away as if that provides some sort of answer.
People who rail against day 1 DLC have no idea how releasing a game works. Especially with giant sprawling games, once you near the release date, there are a lot of specialists who have completed their contribution to the final project. Artists may be done with their portion, story writers may be done with their portion, certain programming teams may be done with their portion, etc. They need something to do, so they start working on DLC.
Politician's fallacy. And thanks for even putting it clearly in the right format.:) Seriously, isn't it the job of managers that if people are finished with project A, they can move right on to project B? The idea that because some people get done earlier than others on project A doesn't change that. It just means that when scheduling for project C, you can make considerations that some people might be done even earlier and figure out what else they can be doing with their time. That DLC might come up as an option might make sense, even as a project B. But, it's not a natural consequence of things as a point.
"Ah, but they could put that right on the disc in the first place!", you may say. No, they can't. By this point, the game needs to be finalized so they can thoroughly test it, create a master copy, and begin mass production. In the month(s) that this can take on a large title, there's plenty of time to get a significant DLC pack out.
Great, so what you're saying is, (1) the process of putting out discs is generally outdated because it results in an absurd lag time of months, (2) that even if you accept (1) and are unwilling to wholly get rid of discs you can offer at least part of the content as free DLC (or more precisely, it's effectively part of the purchase price but it can be freely downloaded since it's only of use to a legitimate owner), and (3) there's no real need to put up barriers to obtaining that DLC like charging extra for it, locking it down to a specific system, or limiting who can download it. I mean, you do realize people aren't generally complaining per se that the content isn't on the disc (except perhaps if the content would fit on a second print of the discs and you're unwilling to remaster the discs for the content) but in how that DLC is being treated as both (a) a core function of the game and yet (b) something extra you have to purchase or at least is locked into being only available to the "original buyer" (which is in the same level of absurd as if you had to register your game first to play it, as if the developers curiosity or interests should extend into any effect past their sale of a copy of the game)?
Now, I'm not saying ALL day 1 DLC is because of this (especially rageworthy is something that's on-disc but a day 1 "unlock" DLC) but a very significant portion is. They're not trying to cheat you out of content you should have had, they're just making good use of the time it takes for a game to go from finished to available in stores.
See above about project A and project B. I don't want to be a dick or anything, but if you get done with a project early and the company can't find work for you on another project, it makes more sense to lay you off for a period than to pay them to twiddle their thumbs on "DLC" or whatever the buzz word of the day is. I'd presume that's precisely why BioWare (and others) want to monetize DLC because they simply aren't as committed to finding new demand itself (ie in creating new games) and are trying to make a market. I'd generally find that admirable. The only problem is because of the above mentioned point of project A being finished to project A released and having DLC released on day-1, it doesn't do the fan base justice to really enjoy project A and mull an actual demand for that DLC; instead it comes across as more of a bait and switch where only part of the game was included. It
And this is a great example of why economics is not simple math. You do realize that your train of logic is precisely why 401k plans were created, right? And you do realize that 401k plans are precisely why the stock market is flooded with money, right? And you do realize that this flood of money doesn't translate into new business opportunities or economic growth so much as instability, a large amount of paper worth in stocks, and a general degeneration of the stock market?
Why? Because the stock market isn't for speculation but for investment. The idea isn't too far from real estate: that you buy a property that is inherently immune from inflation concerns and with a combination of continual maintenance/improvement (along with good luck/consideration of the future) will be sellable at a profit many years in the future. Of course if there's a sudden flood of money into real estate because it's a "money maker" then you just have a bubble. And trying to push more money into the bubble doesn't really do anything productive. After all, businesses have to actually be created/invested with the money or you just cause the rival good (be it stocks or real estate) to have ever higher prices in a bidding war that turns into little more than a game of chicken.
And as for business, well, 50% of new businesses fail (ie, close or bankrupt) in the first 5 years and a net operating loss can be used to counter future years of tax liabilities on their individual income tax returns (ie, if you own a company with a net loss of $3,000 (which means the company made no profit and hence pays no income tax), you can potentially deduct $3,000 from your personal income tax liability). Ie, the major problem/concern is the risk of starting a business, not taxes. Why? Because the market is already pretty saturated in meeting peoples demands as a point--that's the inherent truth of the convergence of supply and demand--and it's really hard to create demand or realize a new supply. There isn't much the government can do to fix that issue, expect possibly work to insure that potential customers have more disposable income, do basic/applied research to develop new supplies, or help in brainwashing people into needless consumption; but, those customers aren't likely to be rich people because, as you note, rich people are precisely the ones starting business or plunking them into stocks, not "wasting" it on hookers and blow.
In short, valuation (like price elasticity) is rarely a linear function let alone a gently sloping one indefinitely, even if it is decently linear on smaller scales within the scope of expectation. Once you try to engineer vast amounts of people to do something economic, you inherently warp the very formula you were using; it's no different than recommend that *everyone* take the less trodden trail without consideration that such will precisely cause the less trodden trail to plummet in quality to a massively used trail. The example, btw, shows not that you can't create formulas but merely that you have to include the proper considerations of what recommendations and social engineering will do. And I really don't think you've done that.
Jesus was all about tearing families apart and seemed generally against marriages (although being sort of weaselly about it and saying that as much as it should be avoided, it wasn't outright a sin or anything)
I think most of that sentiment was attributed to Paul (or the forgeries in his name). Jesus did say a few things that, when taken out of context, can be thought of as anti-marriage or anti-family, but most of those were metaphors for other things
Although I'd readily admit Jesus' talk about tearing families apart was metaphorical (in the sense that to accept Christianity at that time would be to stop being Jewish and hence this new sect of Christianity would produce strife/problems), the point about marriage was well considered. Read Matthew 19 which, interestingly enough was anti-divorce (as your comment strays into discussing about Jesus) by being anti-marriage; that is, the best way to avoid a divorce is to not to become married in the first place.
Peter and Andrew's family let the deciples stay with them on at least one or two occasions. Also, consider that the first miracle attributed to Jesus was to supply wine for a wedding.
Which only goes to show that Jesus was a lover/drinker, not a fighter...:) Seriously, though, Jesus went forth trying his best to teach people to be better according to the rules he laid out. He didn't go about damning people; instead, he sought to join groups that could be viewed as damnable and try to teach them why they should change through simple talk and parable, not through threats or acts of violence. That is, btw, a major reason why most Christians aren't Christ-like. Having said that, it's also one reason Christ (and some of his followers) comes across as a politician or a diplomat who wishes to subvert from within. It's one of the reasons why the idea of Jesus always speaking in metaphors to cloud his true meaning has so much weight.
Paul believed that the world would end in his lifetime or shortly after. The way he saw it, there wasn't any point in marrying or starting a family, because your children would never get to grow up. It was better to stay celibate and devote yourself to God (although, if you couldn't keep it in your pants, it was better to marry than to commit fornication).
Golly, it's almost as if he was following his master's teachings:: "there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” Having said that, it's not really clear to me that Jesus wasn't a VHEMT supporter.
Funny, it seems to go both ways, with the Chik-fil-a thing and Chicago/Boston think they can keep an employer out of city simply for expressing his views about.gay marriage.
While I'd tend to agree with you, the problem is that "marriage" is a legal construct and "support" one way or the other is all about either supporting the status quo or working towards change presumably beyond simply words. And while hypothetically, it shouldn't matter what an employer (or company) thinks or does in support, the sad truth is that companies have an inordinate amount of power and influence in our government*. To simply say "vote with your wallet" simply doesn't work alone--unless one believes that either (a) people really don't enjoy all the relatively clean air we have today or (b) that the free market would have magically solved the externality problem of pollution from industrialization/industry (which, btw, would also contradict the idea that cities have the need to define Industry zones). Having said all the above, I think that it's extreme for Chicago/Boston to outright bar Chik-fil-a (as well as such funny ideas as simple restricted them to the same area as Porn Shops since clearly their talk of marriage and implicitly gays/fornication/adultry would make their business an "adult" one--with the idea of such restrictive zone I'd presume fundamentally supported by the same people chastising Chicago/Boston for their actions). Or, in short, the problem is one of authoritarianism controls, not really a "side" of the political spectrum; it's why it's always absurd that people strive to become politicians on the platform of "government is incompetent/shouldn't get involved" with any plan to get into office to do something.
However, I agree with you on principle, if people would quit forcing their views on others, that would be great.
Well, at least in the whole gay marriage thing, the answer is to "redefine marriage"--which Dan Cathy was already complaining about--so that the government isn't involved and hence it's really a moot point. Of course, that opens the door for either (a) broad language that introduces a lot of benefits to people that it was never intended to benefit (which screws up the whole social engineer aspect of why marriage was made a government thing in the first place) or (b) strip almost all the benefits out (which will piss off a lot of married people who expect to be treated special).
For the record, I'm offended that you're offended that I'm offended that you're offended.
Personally, I'm offended that Dan Cathy is married at all.:) j/k But, seriously, given Jesus was all about tearing families apart and seemed generally against marriages (although being sort of weaselly about it and saying that as much as it should be avoided, it wasn't outright a sin or anything); Dan Cathy clearly has some "nuclear family" idea of the family unit which...given "nuclear" isn't in the Bible...
*Yea, obviously Chik-fil-a has no influence. But what if the company was Wal-Mart and the support was for ending laws protecting union formation? Or some big industrial company pushing support for the same continued regulation even though there's debate about whether a chemical they heavily use may be a carcinogen even in small dosages/little contact and hence a need to review/update that regulation? In short, the "keep an employer out of a city simply for expressing his views" might make sense if it's sensed the employer will be bad for your citizens.
And whenever someone voices and disagreement, factually or otherwise, Paul Ryan will do what he's done his entire career: he'll climb up on a cross, demand the spikes be hammered, and declaim from on high "They are doing this to me because I dared tell the Truth!"
Well, whenever he gets "the Truth" we'll be right there with the cross and spikes. Until then... But I do agree with your point, as the "they're persecuting me" is used by politicians and con artists--yea, that's largely redundant--to justify all sorts of things, including various religious revivals. Of course, there's also "Truth to Power" which only proves that if you're annoying/egregious enough, you can make power flinch regardless of what you're saying--which is one major reason I've always disliked Hamlet. But, then, all the world is a stage; I just wish politicians were more entertaining actors.
Thank you. The question of "can" really just misses the point. The issue of drones causing more unrest brings up the point of "should". Sure, drones "can" end terrorism. And terrorism "can" produce positive change. You can probably dredge through history and show the percentages of success (well, not with drones, but with similar technology) and even try to spin it into projections of the future. But that all misses the point of whether we or really anyone "should" be waging war in the first place. Yes, 9/11 was a terrible act of violence. And yes, plenty of people who in the past were so very quick to pledge the idea of peace and non-violence were very quick to drop that when they actually saw violence acted upon innocent victims*. But, that's a pitiful excuse to wage 10+ years of war on a scale so out of proportion to the horrific act. Even if it were in proportion, it's really a question of whether the act is one seeking justice or merely vengeance. And that's the real problem today. Until the vast majority of people in the US demand not that their visceral wants out of fear and a thirst for vengeance be satisfied will we really see something actually sensible come out of 9/11. Personally, I'm not holding my breath given how "liberal" Democrats responded after 9/11. Character is really hard to stand behind.
*This applies as much to "the Religion of Peace" as any other, be it supposed Christians or supposed Muslims. And for those would argue that Mohammad called for acts of violence while Christianity doesn't call for such things in that Christ specifically spoke to the contrary, I can only really stress that virtually no Christian seems to really follow the non-violent ideals that Christ supported, not even his apostles really; they only seemed to be kept at bay when Christ was around to tell them to stop.
there are artists doing this, and have done so for a couple of years now.
One example is Nine Inch Nails. For the last few albums he has released all of his tracks as individual parts under a creative commons share, attributon, non-comercial license. (in both proprietry and raw(wav/flac) formats.
Sounds good...except the "non-commercial" part of the license. It's one of the main killer problems I see with CC in general, that too often people go the non-commercial route. You might say*, "but it's their right that someone else shouldn't make money off what is substantially their work"; and I reply, "if you're doing such a great job, people will find out because of the attribution requirement and will be beating down your door on album two or three"--beyond the point, the idea behind "share" is that "share" is the effective payment, even if they do make money off it. Or you could say, "but people will just share my work and not pay me"; and I reply, "well, if that's the case, then it's just as probable that anyone else who tried to commercialize it would fail as well as people share the work"--that's one reason, btw, one has to accept the "share" aspect is the real payment and monetary payments are really a fringe benefit because you can't rely upon them in the same way you might in a closed license. Finally you could say, "but the commercial person will hide or obfuscate the share/attribution requirements"; and I reply, "well, no sort of license will protect you from that sort of outright fraud"--although "releasing the source code" could be said to make it easier to obfuscate, I think gpl-violations and others have show most people are too lazy to hide the effective "watermark" that is the original since it's precisely that "watermark" which they wish to copy.
In short, the shortsightedness of people not wanting others to commercial exploit their work really limits the long-term community support. Why? Because when a new artist comes along and remixes a current work and has a commercial go of it, they're unlikely to get very far on that alone. But, that commercial success is a stepping stone upon which they can move to making complete works of their own. There's plenty of examples of that in all sorts of works, music and otherwise, which succeeds as a point because a lot of copyright authors aren't as sue-happy as people tend to believe and those mega corporations that are the effective copyright holder are often oblivious to the fact--after all, they're usually businessmen, not creative experts, and could just as well be potentially tone deaf.
So, while I definitely applaud NIN for at least going towards that route, the ability to commercially exploit remixes is really a vital aspect of bringing in new people. I mean, where would the Linux world be if there weren't commercial distributions? I mean, sure, you might not want to use any individual one for various questionable policies they have, but they've effectively contributed a lot of code for both hardware support and creating a lot of the structure as well as the underlying software for a lot of what we come to think of as Linux systems. I'm certain the same holds true for BSD and other platforms as well. Of course, don't take this to mean that commercial is the only way (and sometimes it's only a marginal part)--but it is a part of a healthy ecosystem.
*Oh, and please realize, I'm not trying to put words into your mouth personally. I'm really putting words in NIN's mouth and others. Of course, for all I know, NIN was under some sort of contract and that's the best they could do. Never the less, the point remains that the non-commercial aspect is there.
You did make a mistake when you chose Kazaa as the method of sharing. Kazaa mistreated you (and all its users) by requiring you to run a non-free program on your computer....
Hahaha, what? And people wonder why most people think RMS is a loon when he writes shit like this? Yes, Kazaa "mistreated her" by her voluntarily deciding to download, install and use the program without any coercion from the makers of the program. One can only hope she won't be scarred for life from that heinous act.
Yep, all those lawsuits against Kazaa users were just the icing on the cake. Yep, I totally trust a closed source program to do potentially illegal things... I guess we can just all be thankful that Kazaa wasn't a big hit with Free Tibet dissidents in China.
Also, he's talking about music which doesn't have the "proprietary" vs. "free" distinction (the only way to have proprietary music is to never, ever share it.)
I think that's more a point that there isn't an RMS of the music world. How I understand most music to be recorded/constructed, it's the case that music is composed of usually several instruments (including voices) that are mixed together. This can mean both multiple music/lyrics sheets but also the sound mixing (which itself is unlikely to be a static set per channel). Consider the real possibility of having all of those components released with every song, from boosting the trumpets in certain sections to cutting out one singer entirely. On top of that, with the music sheets, it'd be much easier to modify/expand/shift around to produce new songs.
Of course, you'd still have to have the music under GPL-like terms for that to be of much use in that sense. Considering the availability of tracker software, I am sort of surprised that such a situation hasn't occurred yet, with some indie artist being able to be the next RMS and really dominate--if only in name--a large body of music.
Yes, let's see some of the damning evidence (fromArstechnica
For example, in 2007, one of the Megaupload employees sent an e-mail to his peers about users who had received payments. He described one of the uploaders, who got a $100 payment, as "Our old famous number one on MU, still some illegal files but I think he deserves a payment." Another user who got a $300 check was described as having "30849 files, mainly Mp3z, some copyrighted but most of them have a very small number of downloads per file." In another 2007 e-mail, a Megaupload employee wrote that some of the uploaders receiving payments "had very obvious copyrighted files in their account portfolio, but I was rather flexible."
Hmm.. Sounds to me like the employees are saying that most the content is legitimate and hence their (admittedly pitiful compared to what Megaupload itself raked in) payment should still be given. Now, the fact that they were not preemptively taking down content? Well, that seems to only really be an issue because they were stupid enough to look in the first place. I mean, consider Google's relationship with Youtube users. I don't doubt that Google is aware that their users are uploading content and the people with the most views are more likely to have such content. But, they presumably have policy to not actually check, to remain in the legal clear--and this seems rather stupid to me, given it's just another form of willful ignorance to counter the absurd fruit-of-the-poison-tree-like expectations against found pirates/piracy. Having said that, it doesn't sound like actively working up to this point. Until...
In a 2008 incident, a user e-mailed Megaupload and wrote "I've been trying to watch Dexter episodes, but... the sound doesn't match up with the visual." Dotcom forwarded this e-mail to a subordinate, adding "...on many forums people complain that our video / sound are not in sync... We need to solve this asap!" Dexter, of course, is a popular, copyrighted television show.
And this is the damning part of it. Up until this, it could be claimed to be negligence or willful ignorance (as it sounds like employees were merely making educated guesses, not legal deductions, about content) which at least possibly could be legally excused. This just makes it sound like Megaupload was specifically working with pirates to pirate a show. And as much as Dotcom might have wanted it (as much as I presume Youtube's founders did until enough user content was added to usurp it) to attract enough users to form a community (as piracy/porn could be said to be the seeds of many nascent technologies/systems), this seems to go well beyond that into the realm of trying to make Megaupload *the* pirate system.
Of course, in the end, it'll probably take a bit more context to be actually sure that this isn't just twisting of an email. I mean, perhaps the complaint is merely that Megaupload was having fidelity issues with any video being copied to its service? That doesn't seem likely (AFAIK, there was no reencoding like Youtube), but perhaps there's another interpretation/explanation? I seriously don't see it, though.
There is no logical secular objection to polygamy or polyandry or "poly-cluster" sexual unions.
Actually, there's two major logical secular objections to poly* marriages. Objection one is that it creates a warped situation where more generally affluent individuals can marry many spouses simultaneously which causes an imbalance in pairing availability for other, less wealthy individuals; this, btw, also holds to the point of encouraging more disparate marriage ages, as obviously an older person has more opportunity to have acquired wealth. Objection two is that current marital disputes are already severely complicated, which is a major reason things like bastard children not being able to inherent were established as a matter of common law.
Where existing contracts don't cover the bases, add riders to the base marriage contract and have at it!
Yeah, good luck with that. So if person A is already married to person B, does person A need person B's permission to marry person C? What happens when there's ambiguous language like "the first heir shale inherit" and person B brings into the marriage a child? What happens if person B agrees to person A's marriage to C but then later decides to effectively void person A and C's marriage by unconsenting to it? If person B dies, does B's child have any say in person A's and person C's marriage either pre marriage or post marriage?
I mean, a lot of the above in one form or another is already an issue in any case and the actual statue of the state tends to resolve questions, but it still takes a judge to mediate the dispute. But once you start including potential multiple contracts coupled with various state statues, potentially multiple in effect, it gets incredibly messy. Removing any state involvement and degenerating it down to just contracts has a lot of risk of incredibly legalistic marriage contracts that no party is fully able to comprehend and for which there is almost certainly going to be enough ambiguity to never really satisfy anyone involved.
In short, I'd say the potential problems of such marriages are n! for n people involved.
Why not? I know that you aren't saying that corporations don't have free speech, because they do as ruled by the supreme court.
Um, I'm not sure that's what was ruled by the supreme court. What was ruled was that citizens or groups of citizens could fund political speech, even if that group was labelled a union or a corporation. But the supreme court has frequently treated political speech as a sort of separate, untreadable space of speech, as if that's the only sort of speech specifically and certainly covered under the First Amendment Bill of Rights' guarantee. Of course, one has to consider how "Free Speech Zones" were considered allowable, too... (which speaks of how the courts consider time/space displacement itself not a form of speech nor suppression of speech, which really blows down Verizon's talk as if their time/space displacement of packet deliver is a form of speech).
You are arguing that corporations SHOULDN'T have free speech. Most of the time, when people make that argument, it is mainly because they don't like what the corporation is saying. This is a stupid argument.
I'd argue corporations SHOULDN'T legally exist as they're granted extra-personal rights (like limited liability and common carrier-like status). However, since they do exist and are unlikely to disappear, then as a state created manifestation, it is to reason that the state could dictate the amount and type of speech allowed.
Other times, somewhat more sanely, people think corporations shouldn't have speech because they are large and can speak disproportionately loudly. That's slightly better, but we don't limit speech merely because of a better chance of being heard. That's not how free speech works.
I couldn't care less how loudly a person can speak so long as they're capable of being held liable for that speech as any other person would. However, people are rarely held civilly or criminally for their speech. So, it's not too surprising that corporations get away with such flagrant violations of things like fraud, liable, etc.
Another argument is that corporations are not people, thus shouldn't have free speech. This shows a lack of understanding of corporations. If people want to get together and make a movie criticizing some politician, they should be allowed to. This is not even controversial. A corporation is nothing but a convenient way to get together and be organized. If we abolished corporations, people would achieve the same goals (probably using contract law), except we would pay more as a society to accountants and lawyers for keeping track of all the paperwork. What a waste.
The problem is, corporations don't speak. People speak. Every time "a corporation" speaks, it involves one or more people engaging in the act of speech. As such, if libel or fraud were to occur without a legal corporation, those people would be readily personally liable for that libel or fraud. Further, a lot of people in the chain would be potentially liable as well. From a criminal/civil perspective, it'd probably make the whole investigation process much harder and make any sort of civil suit (except small claims courts) rather futile (as much like mobs, those with the actual money and power would shield themselves through intermediaries). So, I agree, it'd just be messier overall. Never the less, it's really inexplicable how "corporations" are allowed any sort of criminal/civil shielding technically.
So what good argument is there for limiting free speech of corporations? (Note: this case is not one, because Verizon is speaking the same way a microphone speaks.....that is, they aren't speaking, it has nothing to do with speech).
The first time a corporation speaks on its own, we can discuss limiting free speech. Meanwhile, it's useful to note that corporations are a legal fiction that have more to do with
Really? So, which part of "Establish a high quality and consistency baseline for all Windows-based applications" translates into each new MS Office iteration overriding the File Dialog and generally doing a make over that Windows itself tended to follow? Further what part of each new IE iteration from IE 3 to IE 6 meaning yet a new interface mechanism (with IE3, hideable toolbars; with IE 4, moveable toolbars; with IE 5, collapsable/expanding toolbars/menus; with IE 6, lockable toolbars)? Is this iteration more of a move from 3D to flat or from flat to 3D when it comes to buttons, toolbars, etc? Should the background be a clear, plain color or some sort of marbled/swirly texture? Should toolbars/buttons meld together or be distinctly separate?
Seriously, though, as much as I can certainly see some consistent in the design (titlebar, menubar, toolbar, client area) for quite some time, there always seemed to be some need by MS to fidget about the border/design of those components, even going as far as merging or unmerging them. Certainly, there didn't seem to be a consistent rhyme or reason to it; it seemed all a matter of newness. That isn't to say some changes weren't good; but, it seemed more trial and error with plenty of reversions.
GPLv3 requires unlocked hardware, mandating that if the user is in not in charge, the user is not allowed to use the software. Another software company mandates that all hardware vendors require bootstrap loaders in order to be qualified to run their OS. Now, suddenly there's a whole host of hardware vendors that have to choose whether to take the safe bet and ship a Windows-based OS or completely and probably permanently sever their ties with Microsoft.
The real question would have to be, why would hardware vendors, after seeing that MS is leading down the path of making its own hardware and presumably working to cut them out of the market when it comes to Windows hardware, going out of its way to support Secure Boot or any other MS-controlled authorization scheme? The simple truth is, the major point of the GPLv3, beyond preventing its use on locked down hardware, is to be a red flag that something is serious fucked up in the situation for the user.
When it comes to stomping Linux into the ground, the GPLv3 is Microsoft's wet dream.
Right... Because it's not like MS could deny a signing key for FreeBSD. Oh, right, the GPLv3 has really nothing to do with it except symbolically.
you could claim that it's rejecting right to tinker in a sandbox - which seems to be a goal, not an oversight
The problem is that more and more hardware is moving towards signed firmware. This transition is inevitable because the level of malware in computing today is just too high, and the only way to reliably prevent malware is to know with some degree of certainty who wrote a particular piece of code.
Yeah. I mean, look how ActiveX never had malware issues. And hell, we all know how much SSL was such a great success because of certificates. Meanwhile, Windows is such a bastion of security because it goes beyond signing keys and can outright block all system-level access. Please tell me to stop whenever the bullshit gets thick enough for you?
Within 5-10 years, you will likely be unable to buy commodity hardware that can run unsigned code (except maybe for specialized server boxes). This is inevitable, and isn't something you can change by whining about it.
This is probably inevitable for the same reason most x86 CPUs are x86_64 and VM/dual core is so common: the extra silicon space is so relatively small compared to the potential "added feature" selling factor to users. The real question isn't if TPM-like modules will be included any more than whether Pentium3s had unique serial numbers built in. The real question is whether it'll be forced on the user such that only signed code will run--or more precisely, the main boot chain since jailbreaking seems a given. It's really hard for me to imagine that will work out precisely because it will be shown to be such a futile effort via malware prevention and people will bitch about it enough to demand a BIOS option to turn it off. So, yea, maybe for Windows it will be inevitable anyways, but that doesn't mean people won't be able to chose Linux, FreeBSD, etc to avoid the clusterfuck it's likely to be.
So your choices are pretty much either to accept that the world is changing and adapt or continue pissing into the wind. Either way, the result will be the same. If you want freedom to tinker, you're going to have to provide an alternative. This means either passing laws to mandate that vendors provide an alternative or coming up with a standard scheme for single-device-specific signing certificates (and shared infrastructure to provide such certificates) that the hardware vendors can all agree to support.
Well, the former is unlikely just because it seems in direct contradiction to the point of the DMCA. Meanwhile, the latter won't work because again it seems in direct contradiction to the DMCA.
Well giving a the Carrot in terms of Tax Breaks for the poor isn't that useful.
1. A lot of them pay small amount of tax, so the carrot would be small. For the Rich, it is a sizable increase, perhaps worth a changing a behavior.
Except it doesn't really work that way. If I get back an extra $20 being poor, there's not a lot of worth in long-term planning even over a lifetime even with things like compounding interest. Meanwhile, if I get back an extra $20,000 being rich, then I make close to 1000x what the poor person is (maybe it's closer to 500x, but the point generally remains) and either I'm already investing a lot of that money already for which that extra $20,000 over a lifetime doesn't mean much--as the rest of my invested money already places me quite comfortably--or I'm not investing already and that extra money just means the same sort of "bonus check" it means to the poor.
2. Poor in general (yes they are exceptions) don't tend to focus on long term planning, or how taxable their habits are.
One, if you make very little, then you almost by definition have have to have long-term planning because there's very little other than food and clothing that you can afford directly with your income. Admittedly, this is more long-term in the "a few years" than long-term "until I retire", but the latter only really comes into play when deciding things like "should I get a mortgage on house X or house Y" and that's the sort of thing for which taxes probably are just outside the scope of consideration unless they're just crippling from the start. Meanwhile, as far as how taxable their habits are...it's not that they don't notice. It's just that their "sin tax" habits aren't things they plan to give up until they literally have to. That's the same general stubbornness I see in most everyone, really, which rather contradicts your first point.
3. The poor will tend (yes they are exceptions) to get more support federally then the rich (Per dollar payed in taxes)
Yeah, how dare the poor--who by seeming definition need outside support and for which the federal government has taken upon itself to be part of that support--be supported more than the rich--who generally speaking shouldn't need nor deserve any more than what everyone else but the poor get. It's one reason that a "flat tax" or any other "fair tax" system won't every be "fair" in any useful sense. Taxing the poor to then just further aid them again as much as you take away really just means any sort of "fair tax" is really a question of how to distribute the tax burden on the non-poor. And to that end...well..the poor have really nothing to do with the discussion.
However giving them the stick, Would encourage a behavior change, because it is money that will go away vs money you will get back.
Only if it cripples their ability to live as they were. But, then, that'd almost certainly compel the federal government to provide the funds for the poor and just sets up another way the federal government gets to decide how the poor should live, both in the positive and the negative sense.
Myself included, When I get my paycheck I see 1/3 (Federal and State Taxes) go away, That in my mind is money I never had, so I don't think about it, if I get some back at tax time, it is just a bonus to me.
And for most the poor, it's the vacation/Christmas budget (possibly in credit card bills), since saving that extra $10/week in their paycheck over a year doesn't add up to much. And meanwhile, you can get year-long enjoyment spending that $10/week (or $40/month or $80/2 months). Meanwhile, if that "bonus" went away and taxes were to drop significantly to compensate, then I'm certain most the poor would save for Christmas/vacation and the few who didn't would be either (a) ridiculed or (b) helped out so their small kids have toys (which sti
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Let me tell you a little story about a recent experience I've had with Linux (Ubuntu to be specific) that should give you an idea on why, I think, Linux is something of a failure on the desktop.
I've been using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS for a long time. Well, 3 years. You see, Ubuntu only supports (as in, will fix security bugs) a version of their distro for a maximum of three years--and even then, you have to use a Long Term Service release to see that. Compare that to XP, which shows a much longer period of support. Oh, you say, but an upgrade is free. Well, let's talk about that upgrade to 12.04 LTS.
On my system, I had to d/l ~6GB of package updates for Ubuntu itself and then another ~3GB for "Third Party Sources"--let's ignore those "Third Party Sources" for the moment since that's its own thing. Most of that comes down to the point that, as another poster pointed out, libraries go through regular ABI breakage. Hence, a LTS version can't readily upgrade a library progressively, indefinitely. Instead, a break, in the form of a new distro version, or some heavily-lifting constant backporting (what Debian does) has to be done--the latter of which merely delays the inevitable--which is a very arduous process. Why? Well, the biggest reasons are as follows:
The Installation, once started, can't really be aborted. Because of the interconnected nature of Linux distros, which package managers help manage, there's no way to do a clean break to pause and resume progress. It helps none that Linux itself does a piss poor job of supporting things like hibernation, replay ability, or the general framework of supporting containers so one could, given enough disk space, simply have the older and newer distro installed at the same time and it be almost trivial to support resuming. Instead, one is left with an installation that could take a day or more--more so because changed config replacement/keeping isn't grouped so the installation will repeatedly stall unless you're willing to nurse a 5+ hour install. And that doesn't even get into the obvious stuff--ndiswrapper either moved packages or something which resulted in a lack of wireless support on my newly installed distro version which rather hampers finding out where it moved to online and downloading the new ndiswrapper package. Thankfully, due to a "feature" of older kernel images not being removed when their package is removed--which violates the concept of a package manager managing things (which further brings up the subject of configuration files, but I digress)--I was able to resolve the issue. Meanwhile, umount still segfaults on hal-based mounts. :/
Now, I'm sure people could argue "well, that's just an issue with Ubuntu" or "I've never had problems with upgrading my distro". But, the point is, the underlying architecture isn't robust for dealing with the sort of issues endemic to the FOSS world of library upgrades or even drivers moving/disappearing. And the argument that "well, Windows/Mac OS X is no better/is worse" does nothing about showing why Linux is better and something people should want to choose. And I do agree Linux is better. It's just marginally better in a lot of areas and those better areas are aggravating at times and, at least in short bursts, worse than the alternatives.
Um, that's pretty much the opposite of "automagically".
Well, the answer is obvious. If an enterprise need such functionality for a set of phones, it effectively wants to administrate over the phones above and beyond what Apple offers. The leaves two options: Apple can sell phones to enterprises where they can do an at-install profile load that allows traffic redirects or Apple can have enterprises pay them to store such profiles on their servers and automagically load it up for phones bought/associated with an enterprise.
And that's no real solution. Honestly, at one level I'm surprised Apple allows web traffic redirecting precisely because it may be possible to use it as part of a spoofing attack to allow a "malicious" user to gain "unauthorized" access on their phone. I mean, I presume Apple uses things like signing keys and goes out of its way to do checks as many places as it can, but I'd imagine Apple would try to hamper (and it'd only be an inconvenience really) anything that could even potentially be used to get out of their walled garden.
Which is only true because Apple included the feature and has yet to remove it.
Actually, yes. The whole point of a walled garden is that I, the user, shouldn't have to install "custom configuration profiles". If such behavior is at all warranted, it should be accessible automagically and appropriately. Put another way, if it's not okay for an App Store app to do it--presumably on the basis that it's somehow unsafe or unwanted by the user--then why should it be doable another way. I mean, your whole "route traffic from my phone to a debugging HTTP proxy" sounds inside the scope of development which, you know, developers should reasonably want access to but that translates into a non-common-user experience and hence isn't reasonably in the scope of the average user--and for which if such things were actually needed, they should be administered by Apple as the caregiver of the walled garden. Compare this to to a future version of Windows Defender reverting hosts file changes and the outcry against such things precisely because the PC is the antithesis of a walled garden, even though Windows computers are otherwise used by the common user.
Lucifer, the Fallen Angel. Ie, Lucifer once was a messenger of God. Although it sounds like he never left heaven (at least until he became a fallen angel), so I'm not sure if he would have the power to speak to man from there.
Uh, no. Moses might well have said not to murder, but there's plenty of prescriptions for violations that warranted "death by stoning". Let us also not forget the many, many times that God sanctioned the genocide of regions (Canan comes to mind) under the logic that God bestowed the (already occupied) land to the Israelis and hence it was acceptable for them to wage war to obtain that owed land. Besides, two things are true: one, that Satan was not always called a murderer and a liar and two, there aren't always two or more messengers standing by to tell you what is God's or the King's plan.
As much as that may be so, my point was that simply being "good" isn't enough to guarantee righteous rule precisely because without absolute power and, more importantly, absolute clairvoyance, it is quite possible to be manipulated, lied to, etc and to have that power abused. In the world of humans, that means people can be maimed, killed, or simply be sent away in a fashion to never be found again. Under the rule of a merely omnipotent God without omniscience, the best that could be done would be to do things like reverse time to a point before such abuses occurred and then guarantee they don't occur again. That'd still leave the evil deed having been done once. Meanwhile, with mere omniscience but without omnipotence, it might be impossible to manipulate the situation, no matter how much time is given, to produce the desired results. I mean, man was created in the image of God and look how quickly man turned to sin? Hell, the very concept of a fallen angel, a being created perfect who would then turn sinful, rather undermines the concept of there being some magical unity or that those in heaven would stay good indefinitely--although just not having anyone deemed worthy fixes that little dilemma. But, that's digressing from the obvious point that really wonders why Jesus didn't just start his eternal heavily paradise for man back in 0AD.
The most good, wholesome, upright, and noble king who is locked away in his tower and his name used to justify unspeakable evil, which in one form or another has occurred repeatedly throughout history, rather contradicts that viewpoint. Now, when you start granting the person absolute clairvoyance to avoid such troubles... Of course, you could also argue that "well, it's not the king who is actually doing the harm" but the quote was "that much power in one person is very perilous to those around him"--ie, the core problem is the vestment of power in a single man, not necessarily the outright acts of that man. I mean, if Lucifer, the messenger of God, says to kill someone, wouldn't you do it? Oh, right, another great example of how sometimes you can't trust the messenger.
News reporters have neither the inclination nor the means to look over our shoulder every minute of the day while using any particular device or do any particular activity, as a point--with the exception of specific people of interest. If they did, yes, we'd call them spies.
Well, what do you know, the point that web sites do collect such information is an actual point of contention for precisely the reason that the gathered information can be used to form a picture of a person's browsing habits. This is one reason why there's been such broad discussion about Google and Facebook and the privacy concerns of their users. In fact, it goes to the point that journalists do speak of Google and Facebook "spying" on its users precisely because of the degree of data collection. But, then, I'd presume you recognize that the "collection" being spoke of is more than the transient and necessary stateful information needed for common transaction which is quickly forgotten as a matter of course.
And with computers (or license plate cameras), that "flesh-and-blood human standing in a corner collect[ing] information" becomes an impersonal, vast data bank of information. Couple that with fantastic computing power and data mining algorithms, and you have the recipe for the potential for inherent stalking on a massive scale. So, every time it's possible that information is being warehoused, people want to know *before* it gets to the point that the warehouse is full and the data mining begins. But, you know, that's just crazy conspiracy theory stuff. I mean, it's not like some mostly faceless corporation has ever been caught doing such things before... And golly, it's not like the government would buy or coerce a company for that information at a later date to effectively blackmail whoever of the population they need/want to.
Every time a politician blows hot "air", he only releases heat once. But, it's the CO2/legislation that has the long-term, magnifying effect.
PS - I know you're joking, of course. I just think what you say could be made into a good analogy a lot of right-wing anti-government types could be made to understand. But, then, I don't really get the impression a lot of those people actually stop to think about the situation, anyways, since I'm pretty sure they're just reciting dogma. That's not to say the left (or center or whatever direction you choose) doesn't have its own dogma. But, then, most if it seems a lot less ignorant and a lot less harmful. But, then, as we know, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
Shh.. I hear there's this website, Google that merely links sites and makes over $1,000,000,000/month in 2010. Oh, right, making money from linking isn't illegal or relevant per se. Of course, Google isn't going around directly encouraging users to upload other people's copyrighted works, but since "inciting to commit copyright infringement" isn't itself a crime AFAIK... Then again, it could be argued to be a form of conspiracy. In any case, linking would seem to be a moot point.
Um, and? Do you think most site owners or, hell, copyright owners who make any sort of profit are "only wishing to give to the world, to provide cultural enrichment to the needy, etc"? Fuck no. They're in it for the money as a general point. And why shouldn't they be? It's not there's anything illegal or amoral about trying to make money. The fact that those actions may only incidentally provide cultural enrichment or whatever is really precisely a byproduct of how copyright was written; the fact that violating copyright might actually, even incidentally, have the same effect is both amusing and rather condemns the idea that copyright is necessary. Of course, the hard part is actually knowing if and when cultural enrichment actually is occurring. Personally, I don't think I can hand wave one way or the other about the need or effectiveness of copyright/copyright law in that regard.
Very true. I only hope the GP was speaking in hyperbole. The whole Pussy Riot case in Russia is absurd.
Not really, no. The storylines in Mario games have never been particularly creative* and honestly I know of few people who *want* a particularly creative storyline. After all, people don't play Mario games for the story but for the inventive, innovative platformesque game mechanics. To that end, it's hard to believe that all the ideas have been used up.
Um, they've "reboot[ed]" the franchise effectively plenty of times. In fact, one could argue that that's the basic expectation in every game. As much as there might be common characters and common elements, virtually ever Mario game has been different substantially than the last (with a few exception). It's precisely this reason that so many people love Mario games, actually.
Well, people don't expect that. What they do expect is that Mario N isn't Mario M with different levels. If the same game engine is used as a base, it has to include noticeably updated mechanics that help differentiate itself from its predecessor--and I don't mean higher polygon count, greater draw distance, or more light balls. It has nothing to do with changing Mario into a FPS. It does have to do with exploring what all is encompassed in a platformer and expecting Nintendo to innovate within that arena in expected, yet simultaneously surprising, ways. I'd assume that's why the review suggests slowing down Mario releases, to give the development team more time to come up with creative new ideas. I mean, I like Mega Man games and know how repetitive they can get, yet I still love them because I don't have the expectation that they'll be innovative. But Mario games are supposed to feel different.
*And yea, at this point I'd like to detour and note that "Mario" games are now multiple different franchises from party to RPG to whatever. I'm speaking of the platformer line. The RPG line is reasonably creative and has its own little charm, and I'll leave it at that.
I think you're conflating two different groups of people. The GP was speaking about the type of people who "freaked out" because "nuclear movie disaster" actually happened. It's the same of thing when people "freaked out" about Three Mile Island. The problem was never the amount of radiation that leaked out. Like the GP points out, it's that radiation leaked out out of something that wasn't by design but by accident. It's the same sort of legitimate "freaked out" people had about 9/11 and planes crashing into skyscrapers and the Pentagon and skyscrapers collapsing and people dying.
And this brings up the second group of people. Journalists, anti-nuclear/Muslim/Afghanistan/whatever, etc groups take a legitimate fear in people and stoke it, either by calmly reporting the truth (which inherently puts a focus on it that drives fear into an already panicking person) or drives up potential worst case scenarios (either to simply drive up readership or to, you know, report the worst case scenario as part of a "see, we told you it could happen" journalistic/anti-whatever clairvoyance). Saying "you don't have reason to be alarmed" just doesn't work because, you know, the people are panicking. It doesn't help when it's clear that people are trying to downplay the significance of an event by covering up what happened/is happening.
I'm not saying that people don't simply combine a little bit of fear and a lot of predisposition or pre-made opinion and stick with it against the adversity of fact and truth. But talking about someone being a "luddite" because they note that a nuclear reactor's design failed resulting in radiation exposure and that's what people are miffed about is clearly wrong headed. It would be much more sensible to be open and honest and spell out (a) actual design plans for worst case scenarios, (b) show how that relates to both natural, on-going risks as well as other similar man-made technology (both the on-going radiation from coal plants and the worst case scenarios), and (c) to stop being a general dick calling people "luddite"s because they don't want to be surprised by stuff even the designers of a potentially deadly thing didn't foresee and plan around.
PS - A bit off-topic, but since I brought it up anyways... The whole Afghanistan/Iraq War thing could have likely been avoided if precisely the above had been followed. Instead of acting shocked and angered that, you know, a huge plane full of fuel could take down a skyscraper, they really should have effectively shrugged it off as yet another terrorist attack no more fundamentally different than the many, many terrorist airplane bombings that had occurred before. It doesn't mean not acting. But it does mean not turning tail based on fear. At the same time, it doesn't mean not being angered at the fundamental senseless death or mourning the loss of life; but, that same logic fundamentally translates into not turning that angry into the senseless death and mourning the loss of life that is inherent in starting wars. In the end, flipping the bird at people who are afraid does no real good because those people will keep searching for someone who will give them an answer they want to stomach; and odds are good it'll be a person who will play their fears instead of helping them overcome those fears. Some of that is unavoidable of course as people too frequently choose the easy route. But your sort of response is simply to turn people away as if that provides some sort of answer.
Politician's fallacy. And thanks for even putting it clearly in the right format. :) Seriously, isn't it the job of managers that if people are finished with project A, they can move right on to project B? The idea that because some people get done earlier than others on project A doesn't change that. It just means that when scheduling for project C, you can make considerations that some people might be done even earlier and figure out what else they can be doing with their time. That DLC might come up as an option might make sense, even as a project B. But, it's not a natural consequence of things as a point.
Great, so what you're saying is, (1) the process of putting out discs is generally outdated because it results in an absurd lag time of months, (2) that even if you accept (1) and are unwilling to wholly get rid of discs you can offer at least part of the content as free DLC (or more precisely, it's effectively part of the purchase price but it can be freely downloaded since it's only of use to a legitimate owner), and (3) there's no real need to put up barriers to obtaining that DLC like charging extra for it, locking it down to a specific system, or limiting who can download it. I mean, you do realize people aren't generally complaining per se that the content isn't on the disc (except perhaps if the content would fit on a second print of the discs and you're unwilling to remaster the discs for the content) but in how that DLC is being treated as both (a) a core function of the game and yet (b) something extra you have to purchase or at least is locked into being only available to the "original buyer" (which is in the same level of absurd as if you had to register your game first to play it, as if the developers curiosity or interests should extend into any effect past their sale of a copy of the game)?
See above about project A and project B. I don't want to be a dick or anything, but if you get done with a project early and the company can't find work for you on another project, it makes more sense to lay you off for a period than to pay them to twiddle their thumbs on "DLC" or whatever the buzz word of the day is. I'd presume that's precisely why BioWare (and others) want to monetize DLC because they simply aren't as committed to finding new demand itself (ie in creating new games) and are trying to make a market. I'd generally find that admirable. The only problem is because of the above mentioned point of project A being finished to project A released and having DLC released on day-1, it doesn't do the fan base justice to really enjoy project A and mull an actual demand for that DLC; instead it comes across as more of a bait and switch where only part of the game was included. It
And this is a great example of why economics is not simple math. You do realize that your train of logic is precisely why 401k plans were created, right? And you do realize that 401k plans are precisely why the stock market is flooded with money, right? And you do realize that this flood of money doesn't translate into new business opportunities or economic growth so much as instability, a large amount of paper worth in stocks, and a general degeneration of the stock market?
Why? Because the stock market isn't for speculation but for investment. The idea isn't too far from real estate: that you buy a property that is inherently immune from inflation concerns and with a combination of continual maintenance/improvement (along with good luck/consideration of the future) will be sellable at a profit many years in the future. Of course if there's a sudden flood of money into real estate because it's a "money maker" then you just have a bubble. And trying to push more money into the bubble doesn't really do anything productive. After all, businesses have to actually be created/invested with the money or you just cause the rival good (be it stocks or real estate) to have ever higher prices in a bidding war that turns into little more than a game of chicken.
And as for business, well, 50% of new businesses fail (ie, close or bankrupt) in the first 5 years and a net operating loss can be used to counter future years of tax liabilities on their individual income tax returns (ie, if you own a company with a net loss of $3,000 (which means the company made no profit and hence pays no income tax), you can potentially deduct $3,000 from your personal income tax liability). Ie, the major problem/concern is the risk of starting a business, not taxes. Why? Because the market is already pretty saturated in meeting peoples demands as a point--that's the inherent truth of the convergence of supply and demand--and it's really hard to create demand or realize a new supply. There isn't much the government can do to fix that issue, expect possibly work to insure that potential customers have more disposable income, do basic/applied research to develop new supplies, or help in brainwashing people into needless consumption; but, those customers aren't likely to be rich people because, as you note, rich people are precisely the ones starting business or plunking them into stocks, not "wasting" it on hookers and blow.
In short, valuation (like price elasticity) is rarely a linear function let alone a gently sloping one indefinitely, even if it is decently linear on smaller scales within the scope of expectation. Once you try to engineer vast amounts of people to do something economic, you inherently warp the very formula you were using; it's no different than recommend that *everyone* take the less trodden trail without consideration that such will precisely cause the less trodden trail to plummet in quality to a massively used trail. The example, btw, shows not that you can't create formulas but merely that you have to include the proper considerations of what recommendations and social engineering will do. And I really don't think you've done that.
Although I'd readily admit Jesus' talk about tearing families apart was metaphorical (in the sense that to accept Christianity at that time would be to stop being Jewish and hence this new sect of Christianity would produce strife/problems), the point about marriage was well considered. Read Matthew 19 which, interestingly enough was anti-divorce (as your comment strays into discussing about Jesus) by being anti-marriage; that is, the best way to avoid a divorce is to not to become married in the first place.
Which only goes to show that Jesus was a lover/drinker, not a fighter... :) Seriously, though, Jesus went forth trying his best to teach people to be better according to the rules he laid out. He didn't go about damning people; instead, he sought to join groups that could be viewed as damnable and try to teach them why they should change through simple talk and parable, not through threats or acts of violence. That is, btw, a major reason why most Christians aren't Christ-like. Having said that, it's also one reason Christ (and some of his followers) comes across as a politician or a diplomat who wishes to subvert from within. It's one of the reasons why the idea of Jesus always speaking in metaphors to cloud his true meaning has so much weight.
Golly, it's almost as if he was following his master's teachings:: "there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” Having said that, it's not really clear to me that Jesus wasn't a VHEMT supporter.
While I'd tend to agree with you, the problem is that "marriage" is a legal construct and "support" one way or the other is all about either supporting the status quo or working towards change presumably beyond simply words. And while hypothetically, it shouldn't matter what an employer (or company) thinks or does in support, the sad truth is that companies have an inordinate amount of power and influence in our government*. To simply say "vote with your wallet" simply doesn't work alone--unless one believes that either (a) people really don't enjoy all the relatively clean air we have today or (b) that the free market would have magically solved the externality problem of pollution from industrialization/industry (which, btw, would also contradict the idea that cities have the need to define Industry zones). Having said all the above, I think that it's extreme for Chicago/Boston to outright bar Chik-fil-a (as well as such funny ideas as simple restricted them to the same area as Porn Shops since clearly their talk of marriage and implicitly gays/fornication/adultry would make their business an "adult" one--with the idea of such restrictive zone I'd presume fundamentally supported by the same people chastising Chicago/Boston for their actions). Or, in short, the problem is one of authoritarianism controls, not really a "side" of the political spectrum; it's why it's always absurd that people strive to become politicians on the platform of "government is incompetent/shouldn't get involved" with any plan to get into office to do something.
Well, at least in the whole gay marriage thing, the answer is to "redefine marriage"--which Dan Cathy was already complaining about--so that the government isn't involved and hence it's really a moot point. Of course, that opens the door for either (a) broad language that introduces a lot of benefits to people that it was never intended to benefit (which screws up the whole social engineer aspect of why marriage was made a government thing in the first place) or (b) strip almost all the benefits out (which will piss off a lot of married people who expect to be treated special).
Personally, I'm offended that Dan Cathy is married at all. :) j/k But, seriously, given Jesus was all about tearing families apart and seemed generally against marriages (although being sort of weaselly about it and saying that as much as it should be avoided, it wasn't outright a sin or anything); Dan Cathy clearly has some "nuclear family" idea of the family unit which...given "nuclear" isn't in the Bible...
*Yea, obviously Chik-fil-a has no influence. But what if the company was Wal-Mart and the support was for ending laws protecting union formation? Or some big industrial company pushing support for the same continued regulation even though there's debate about whether a chemical they heavily use may be a carcinogen even in small dosages/little contact and hence a need to review/update that regulation? In short, the "keep an employer out of a city simply for expressing his views" might make sense if it's sensed the employer will be bad for your citizens.
Well, whenever he gets "the Truth" we'll be right there with the cross and spikes. Until then... But I do agree with your point, as the "they're persecuting me" is used by politicians and con artists--yea, that's largely redundant--to justify all sorts of things, including various religious revivals. Of course, there's also "Truth to Power" which only proves that if you're annoying/egregious enough, you can make power flinch regardless of what you're saying--which is one major reason I've always disliked Hamlet. But, then, all the world is a stage; I just wish politicians were more entertaining actors.
Thank you. The question of "can" really just misses the point. The issue of drones causing more unrest brings up the point of "should". Sure, drones "can" end terrorism. And terrorism "can" produce positive change. You can probably dredge through history and show the percentages of success (well, not with drones, but with similar technology) and even try to spin it into projections of the future. But that all misses the point of whether we or really anyone "should" be waging war in the first place. Yes, 9/11 was a terrible act of violence. And yes, plenty of people who in the past were so very quick to pledge the idea of peace and non-violence were very quick to drop that when they actually saw violence acted upon innocent victims*. But, that's a pitiful excuse to wage 10+ years of war on a scale so out of proportion to the horrific act. Even if it were in proportion, it's really a question of whether the act is one seeking justice or merely vengeance. And that's the real problem today. Until the vast majority of people in the US demand not that their visceral wants out of fear and a thirst for vengeance be satisfied will we really see something actually sensible come out of 9/11. Personally, I'm not holding my breath given how "liberal" Democrats responded after 9/11. Character is really hard to stand behind.
*This applies as much to "the Religion of Peace" as any other, be it supposed Christians or supposed Muslims. And for those would argue that Mohammad called for acts of violence while Christianity doesn't call for such things in that Christ specifically spoke to the contrary, I can only really stress that virtually no Christian seems to really follow the non-violent ideals that Christ supported, not even his apostles really; they only seemed to be kept at bay when Christ was around to tell them to stop.
Sounds good...except the "non-commercial" part of the license. It's one of the main killer problems I see with CC in general, that too often people go the non-commercial route. You might say*, "but it's their right that someone else shouldn't make money off what is substantially their work"; and I reply, "if you're doing such a great job, people will find out because of the attribution requirement and will be beating down your door on album two or three"--beyond the point, the idea behind "share" is that "share" is the effective payment, even if they do make money off it. Or you could say, "but people will just share my work and not pay me"; and I reply, "well, if that's the case, then it's just as probable that anyone else who tried to commercialize it would fail as well as people share the work"--that's one reason, btw, one has to accept the "share" aspect is the real payment and monetary payments are really a fringe benefit because you can't rely upon them in the same way you might in a closed license. Finally you could say, "but the commercial person will hide or obfuscate the share/attribution requirements"; and I reply, "well, no sort of license will protect you from that sort of outright fraud"--although "releasing the source code" could be said to make it easier to obfuscate, I think gpl-violations and others have show most people are too lazy to hide the effective "watermark" that is the original since it's precisely that "watermark" which they wish to copy.
In short, the shortsightedness of people not wanting others to commercial exploit their work really limits the long-term community support. Why? Because when a new artist comes along and remixes a current work and has a commercial go of it, they're unlikely to get very far on that alone. But, that commercial success is a stepping stone upon which they can move to making complete works of their own. There's plenty of examples of that in all sorts of works, music and otherwise, which succeeds as a point because a lot of copyright authors aren't as sue-happy as people tend to believe and those mega corporations that are the effective copyright holder are often oblivious to the fact--after all, they're usually businessmen, not creative experts, and could just as well be potentially tone deaf.
So, while I definitely applaud NIN for at least going towards that route, the ability to commercially exploit remixes is really a vital aspect of bringing in new people. I mean, where would the Linux world be if there weren't commercial distributions? I mean, sure, you might not want to use any individual one for various questionable policies they have, but they've effectively contributed a lot of code for both hardware support and creating a lot of the structure as well as the underlying software for a lot of what we come to think of as Linux systems. I'm certain the same holds true for BSD and other platforms as well. Of course, don't take this to mean that commercial is the only way (and sometimes it's only a marginal part)--but it is a part of a healthy ecosystem.
*Oh, and please realize, I'm not trying to put words into your mouth personally. I'm really putting words in NIN's mouth and others. Of course, for all I know, NIN was under some sort of contract and that's the best they could do. Never the less, the point remains that the non-commercial aspect is there.
Yep, all those lawsuits against Kazaa users were just the icing on the cake. Yep, I totally trust a closed source program to do potentially illegal things... I guess we can just all be thankful that Kazaa wasn't a big hit with Free Tibet dissidents in China.
I think that's more a point that there isn't an RMS of the music world. How I understand most music to be recorded/constructed, it's the case that music is composed of usually several instruments (including voices) that are mixed together. This can mean both multiple music/lyrics sheets but also the sound mixing (which itself is unlikely to be a static set per channel). Consider the real possibility of having all of those components released with every song, from boosting the trumpets in certain sections to cutting out one singer entirely. On top of that, with the music sheets, it'd be much easier to modify/expand/shift around to produce new songs.
Of course, you'd still have to have the music under GPL-like terms for that to be of much use in that sense. Considering the availability of tracker software, I am sort of surprised that such a situation hasn't occurred yet, with some indie artist being able to be the next RMS and really dominate--if only in name--a large body of music.
Yes, let's see some of the damning evidence (fromArstechnica
Hmm.. Sounds to me like the employees are saying that most the content is legitimate and hence their (admittedly pitiful compared to what Megaupload itself raked in) payment should still be given. Now, the fact that they were not preemptively taking down content? Well, that seems to only really be an issue because they were stupid enough to look in the first place. I mean, consider Google's relationship with Youtube users. I don't doubt that Google is aware that their users are uploading content and the people with the most views are more likely to have such content. But, they presumably have policy to not actually check, to remain in the legal clear--and this seems rather stupid to me, given it's just another form of willful ignorance to counter the absurd fruit-of-the-poison-tree-like expectations against found pirates/piracy. Having said that, it doesn't sound like actively working up to this point. Until...
And this is the damning part of it. Up until this, it could be claimed to be negligence or willful ignorance (as it sounds like employees were merely making educated guesses, not legal deductions, about content) which at least possibly could be legally excused. This just makes it sound like Megaupload was specifically working with pirates to pirate a show. And as much as Dotcom might have wanted it (as much as I presume Youtube's founders did until enough user content was added to usurp it) to attract enough users to form a community (as piracy/porn could be said to be the seeds of many nascent technologies/systems), this seems to go well beyond that into the realm of trying to make Megaupload *the* pirate system.
Of course, in the end, it'll probably take a bit more context to be actually sure that this isn't just twisting of an email. I mean, perhaps the complaint is merely that Megaupload was having fidelity issues with any video being copied to its service? That doesn't seem likely (AFAIK, there was no reencoding like Youtube), but perhaps there's another interpretation/explanation? I seriously don't see it, though.
Actually, there's two major logical secular objections to poly* marriages. Objection one is that it creates a warped situation where more generally affluent individuals can marry many spouses simultaneously which causes an imbalance in pairing availability for other, less wealthy individuals; this, btw, also holds to the point of encouraging more disparate marriage ages, as obviously an older person has more opportunity to have acquired wealth. Objection two is that current marital disputes are already severely complicated, which is a major reason things like bastard children not being able to inherent were established as a matter of common law.
Yeah, good luck with that. So if person A is already married to person B, does person A need person B's permission to marry person C? What happens when there's ambiguous language like "the first heir shale inherit" and person B brings into the marriage a child? What happens if person B agrees to person A's marriage to C but then later decides to effectively void person A and C's marriage by unconsenting to it? If person B dies, does B's child have any say in person A's and person C's marriage either pre marriage or post marriage?
I mean, a lot of the above in one form or another is already an issue in any case and the actual statue of the state tends to resolve questions, but it still takes a judge to mediate the dispute. But once you start including potential multiple contracts coupled with various state statues, potentially multiple in effect, it gets incredibly messy. Removing any state involvement and degenerating it down to just contracts has a lot of risk of incredibly legalistic marriage contracts that no party is fully able to comprehend and for which there is almost certainly going to be enough ambiguity to never really satisfy anyone involved.
In short, I'd say the potential problems of such marriages are n! for n people involved.
Um, I'm not sure that's what was ruled by the supreme court. What was ruled was that citizens or groups of citizens could fund political speech, even if that group was labelled a union or a corporation. But the supreme court has frequently treated political speech as a sort of separate, untreadable space of speech, as if that's the only sort of speech specifically and certainly covered under the First Amendment Bill of Rights' guarantee. Of course, one has to consider how "Free Speech Zones" were considered allowable, too... (which speaks of how the courts consider time/space displacement itself not a form of speech nor suppression of speech, which really blows down Verizon's talk as if their time/space displacement of packet deliver is a form of speech).
I'd argue corporations SHOULDN'T legally exist as they're granted extra-personal rights (like limited liability and common carrier-like status). However, since they do exist and are unlikely to disappear, then as a state created manifestation, it is to reason that the state could dictate the amount and type of speech allowed.
I couldn't care less how loudly a person can speak so long as they're capable of being held liable for that speech as any other person would. However, people are rarely held civilly or criminally for their speech. So, it's not too surprising that corporations get away with such flagrant violations of things like fraud, liable, etc.
The problem is, corporations don't speak. People speak. Every time "a corporation" speaks, it involves one or more people engaging in the act of speech. As such, if libel or fraud were to occur without a legal corporation, those people would be readily personally liable for that libel or fraud. Further, a lot of people in the chain would be potentially liable as well. From a criminal/civil perspective, it'd probably make the whole investigation process much harder and make any sort of civil suit (except small claims courts) rather futile (as much like mobs, those with the actual money and power would shield themselves through intermediaries). So, I agree, it'd just be messier overall. Never the less, it's really inexplicable how "corporations" are allowed any sort of criminal/civil shielding technically.
The first time a corporation speaks on its own, we can discuss limiting free speech. Meanwhile, it's useful to note that corporations are a legal fiction that have more to do with
Really? So, which part of "Establish a high quality and consistency baseline for all Windows-based applications" translates into each new MS Office iteration overriding the File Dialog and generally doing a make over that Windows itself tended to follow? Further what part of each new IE iteration from IE 3 to IE 6 meaning yet a new interface mechanism (with IE3, hideable toolbars; with IE 4, moveable toolbars; with IE 5, collapsable/expanding toolbars/menus; with IE 6, lockable toolbars)? Is this iteration more of a move from 3D to flat or from flat to 3D when it comes to buttons, toolbars, etc? Should the background be a clear, plain color or some sort of marbled/swirly texture? Should toolbars/buttons meld together or be distinctly separate?
Seriously, though, as much as I can certainly see some consistent in the design (titlebar, menubar, toolbar, client area) for quite some time, there always seemed to be some need by MS to fidget about the border/design of those components, even going as far as merging or unmerging them. Certainly, there didn't seem to be a consistent rhyme or reason to it; it seemed all a matter of newness. That isn't to say some changes weren't good; but, it seemed more trial and error with plenty of reversions.
The real question would have to be, why would hardware vendors, after seeing that MS is leading down the path of making its own hardware and presumably working to cut them out of the market when it comes to Windows hardware, going out of its way to support Secure Boot or any other MS-controlled authorization scheme? The simple truth is, the major point of the GPLv3, beyond preventing its use on locked down hardware, is to be a red flag that something is serious fucked up in the situation for the user.
Right... Because it's not like MS could deny a signing key for FreeBSD. Oh, right, the GPLv3 has really nothing to do with it except symbolically.
Yeah. I mean, look how ActiveX never had malware issues. And hell, we all know how much SSL was such a great success because of certificates. Meanwhile, Windows is such a bastion of security because it goes beyond signing keys and can outright block all system-level access. Please tell me to stop whenever the bullshit gets thick enough for you?
This is probably inevitable for the same reason most x86 CPUs are x86_64 and VM/dual core is so common: the extra silicon space is so relatively small compared to the potential "added feature" selling factor to users. The real question isn't if TPM-like modules will be included any more than whether Pentium3s had unique serial numbers built in. The real question is whether it'll be forced on the user such that only signed code will run--or more precisely, the main boot chain since jailbreaking seems a given. It's really hard for me to imagine that will work out precisely because it will be shown to be such a futile effort via malware prevention and people will bitch about it enough to demand a BIOS option to turn it off. So, yea, maybe for Windows it will be inevitable anyways, but that doesn't mean people won't be able to chose Linux, FreeBSD, etc to avoid the clusterfuck it's likely to be.
Well, the former is unlikely just because it seems in direct contradiction to the point of the DMCA. Meanwhile, the latter won't work because again it seems in direct contradiction to the DMCA.
Except it doesn't really work that way. If I get back an extra $20 being poor, there's not a lot of worth in long-term planning even over a lifetime even with things like compounding interest. Meanwhile, if I get back an extra $20,000 being rich, then I make close to 1000x what the poor person is (maybe it's closer to 500x, but the point generally remains) and either I'm already investing a lot of that money already for which that extra $20,000 over a lifetime doesn't mean much--as the rest of my invested money already places me quite comfortably--or I'm not investing already and that extra money just means the same sort of "bonus check" it means to the poor.
One, if you make very little, then you almost by definition have have to have long-term planning because there's very little other than food and clothing that you can afford directly with your income. Admittedly, this is more long-term in the "a few years" than long-term "until I retire", but the latter only really comes into play when deciding things like "should I get a mortgage on house X or house Y" and that's the sort of thing for which taxes probably are just outside the scope of consideration unless they're just crippling from the start. Meanwhile, as far as how taxable their habits are...it's not that they don't notice. It's just that their "sin tax" habits aren't things they plan to give up until they literally have to. That's the same general stubbornness I see in most everyone, really, which rather contradicts your first point.
Yeah, how dare the poor--who by seeming definition need outside support and for which the federal government has taken upon itself to be part of that support--be supported more than the rich--who generally speaking shouldn't need nor deserve any more than what everyone else but the poor get. It's one reason that a "flat tax" or any other "fair tax" system won't every be "fair" in any useful sense. Taxing the poor to then just further aid them again as much as you take away really just means any sort of "fair tax" is really a question of how to distribute the tax burden on the non-poor. And to that end...well..the poor have really nothing to do with the discussion.
Only if it cripples their ability to live as they were. But, then, that'd almost certainly compel the federal government to provide the funds for the poor and just sets up another way the federal government gets to decide how the poor should live, both in the positive and the negative sense.
And for most the poor, it's the vacation/Christmas budget (possibly in credit card bills), since saving that extra $10/week in their paycheck over a year doesn't add up to much. And meanwhile, you can get year-long enjoyment spending that $10/week (or $40/month or $80/2 months). Meanwhile, if that "bonus" went away and taxes were to drop significantly to compensate, then I'm certain most the poor would save for Christmas/vacation and the few who didn't would be either (a) ridiculed or (b) helped out so their small kids have toys (which sti