Well, I tend to think of quantum mechanics as proving the universe functions on call-by-need, with faster than light being the lack of support for mutation. Entangling then is really just call-by-need evaluating out a circumstance backwards far enough to note that when two waves/particles/whatever were at the same place, they had to have certain exclusionary properties (for the article, one photon was polarized vertically and the other horizontally) which cause the interpretation of entanglement.
Of course, all of the above says nothing of the how or why of it. And no doubt, I'm likely far off in really understanding on quantum mechanics. But, it at least helps me better understand it.
They could probably make a very secure system, but people would complain too much because all their applications would have to come vetted from MS and it would be like running IOS on your desktop.
Um...yeah...perhaps you've never heard of 'iOS jailbreaking"? Seriously, even with MS vetted drivers (a mandatory part of 64-bit Windows), almost entirely non-Admin user programs (because of how Windows is designed, there are a handful of MS programs that run at higher privilege to provide the Win32/64 environemnt), things like stack smashing protection, data execution prevention, randomized application offsets, and even sandboxing (admittedly, only rarely done), Pown2Own still clearly shows that IE and Windows 8 are vulnerable. Slapping on Secure Boot wouldn't do a damn thing. And the idea that MS can successfully vet software just falls flat on its face when it fails to adequate protects is own software--unless you think that's some sort of conspiracy.
No, in all seriousness, writing secure software is incredibly hard. My personal problem with MS has more to do with their marketing of Windows as "secure" and "robust" for ages--it was a big selling point as far back as NT 4.0 (probably sooner). And in retrospect, we can see that that was either ignorant/arrogant optimism or just marketer bullshit. I'd contribute it to both, and I don't see the situation changing.with MS or any other non-conservative organization. Really, OpenBSD is about the closest you'll ever get to a secure/robust system, but even there that really translates into a box with very limited software options--anything more and you've stepped out of vetted secure/robust.
PS - And yea, I'd say just about every *nix is guilty of overclaiming robustness and security. The big differences is the degree and just how much it's the organization itself and its many members/fans. I really don't see the same sort of out-of-the-horses-mouth BS that you see in MS PR (or just about any company PR, really). But, to know that's the nature of the beast sort of proves the point on why your claims seem absurd.
A much better analogy would be sheet music and performances. It makes little sense to pretend that sheet music and performances are identical and simply handing performances to the sheet music author seems pretty preposterous.
The fact that there's a mechanical licensing system for music has a lot to do with preventing the sort of absurdity that Nintendo seems to be pulling, the idea that they can monopolize all photos, videos, whatever of any game they ever made--outside a very limited scope. Of course with music, the absurdity was realized very early on. It took something like Youtube and micro-based payments before the situation came down to the level of game performances; before then, there wasn't enough hard currency for Nintendo, or anyone really, to flex their muscle on the subject.
PS - Ask "Which path do you think the Tolkein Estate would take?" is sort of like asking "What would a pyromaniac do with kindling?". It's the great shortsightedness of many authors, like Twain, to not understand that in trying to further copyright past their own life, all they have done is given "Estates" an excuse to be nothing more than useless, money-grubbing parasites. It entirely misses the point of copyright, to reward authors--not their children, grandchildren, et al. That a *live* author should shower his children, grandchildren, et al with that reward is his/her own prerogative. To codify it into law is absurd. And yea, I can see the sticky situation of an author dying young or a very old person seeing very little financial worth to writing. But, that's more a core truth of the inequities of life. Granting copyright past death doesn't really fix anything.
Only 68 papers [rankexploits.com] out of 12,000 asserted greater than 50% of the cause to humans, while 78 explicitly rejected it.
That reminds me of the joke about the man who finds a genie. The genie says he can grant three wishes, but for each one granted the man's worst enemy will receive twice as much of it. The man makes two wishes of great fortune. For his final wish, he wishes to be cast half-dead.
The point, then, is that if nature alone in greenhouse gas emissions is slowly (read, on the scale of thousands of years) shifting us into another ice age, man suddenly pumping anywhere close to the same amount (making humans on the order of 50% responsible for current greenhouse gas emissions) may radically (read, on the scale of hundreds of years or perhaps even decades) shift us towards global warming. So, the question isn't the strawman of 50% man-made greenhouse gases but (a) if there are significant man-made greenhouse gases and (b) how much, if any, shift those gases will have on the climate. Well, the studies show on the order of what nature puts out and our knowledge of nature's own greenhouse gas emissions and their forcing effects (read, they're what keep us from being in a perpetual ice age) tells us that there's something to worry about with the only real debate as of now the exact scale and speed of warming.
But, yea, keep tilting at the irrelevant points that you make up.
Or perhaps evidence about the stupidity of man? Who, after all, spent all the time and money developing war games computers just to either (a) "win" at Global Thermonuclear War or (b) never actually fight (yet still spend billions of dollars to achieve nothing)?
PS - Yea, I know you're just joking. But, to me the point is more sad than funny.
Nearly 4% in 6 months isn't bad especially when you consider the lower demand for PCs in general.
Last year's PC sales were on the order of 348 million, down about 4.5 million from the year before. That means, that if all PCs in the last 6 months were sold with Windows 8, you'd expect about 174 million in sales--obviously that figure is off because there's likely a burst in sales at different times in the year, not every manufacturer instantly switches to selling Windows 8, those that do switch often offer multiple model lines of which some won't include Windows 8 for corporate/other purposes, and then there's all the Mac OS X/Linux machines... In any case, hand waving "lower demand for PCs in general" is a good deal of heavy BS.
Also, some portion of the XP and 7 users will never upgrade so the potential growth for a new OS is even lower.
That's a point that hits it on the head. Windows 8 isn't compelling enough to buy a new machine--like say, a tablet--and directly retail upgrades have never been the main way in which one version of Windows (since at least Windows 95) have supplanted the previous version. Instead, it has been pretty consistently the ever greater PC sales coupled with a lower install base to begin with. Ie, people with Windows 95 bought new machines with Windows 98, but more importantly a lot of people without computers bought machines with Windows 98 and perhaps doubled the number of computer owners.
So, yea, ever since Windows XP or so, the market has become rather saturated and the only way one tends to see a shift in numbers is either (a) a whole new "type" of computer (smart phones, for example) which increase the pool and can shift percentages massively or (b) the slow, yet methodical, death of machines and their new replacements having the latest version of Windows (usually). Given how Metro was trying to push for (a) (ignoring how it'd likely be an incarnation of (b)), I'd say the figures are pretty dismal.
It's already the fourth most popular OS.
Which isn't saying much. Windows has heavy vendor lock-in on programs people need/want/expect to use. Couple that with a lot of OEMs preloading Windows 8 on millions of machines, and you'd expect it to become a "popular" OS if nothing else because people can still run said programs, no matter how much they otherwise hate the OS. Hell, Windows 98 might score higher than Windows 8 if there was the option of it instead of Windows 8 over the last 10 years--especially because of the Vista days:)
Nah, I'd say my main issue is just how much "genetic modification" is no silver bullet. As this article goes on about, using Roundup Ready resistant crops just encourages more herbicide usage. And just like there being super microbes resistant to antibiotics from overuse, there's now super weeds resistant to Roundup Ready. I mean, obviously some of that's just inevitable--that's the magic of evolution. But, it makes clear the point that if GMO crops are to be a part of the mix in an area, they should be offsetable in a reasonable period of time with non-GMO crops.
The problem, of course, is that farmers will reasonably just do whatever is economical. And even with mandates to plant some many acres of non-GMO crop for some many acres of GMO crop, it's clearly a vested interest of regulators and farmers to push for unsafe limits and to ignore as long as possible the adverse effects until it's too late. It'd be clearly different if, oh, we were try to actually wipe out certain weeds or insects with a herbicide/insecticide program. But that's generally not a viable issue--and it'd possibly be ecologically disastrous. So, there clearly needs to be a lot more planning and oversight than what is really being done. And that doesn't even get into the issue of cross-pollination of GMO crops with similar species plants.:/
From my point of view (and it is only that!) I don't see what is so wrong with banning it from public wifi spots.
How about, "It's none of the government's business what I do when it comes to my wifi spot, public or private, unless *I* am doing something illegal; and just making anything I do illegal doesn't count."
Two things occur to me:
Firstly, it means less issues with people who don't know better browsing for it in Starbucks for example.
So, we need to protect children and adults from a lack of their own common sense? How about, if you browse porn in Starbucks and it disturbs other customers, you get kicked out? Because there's a lot more than porn that'll disturb other customers--loud music, racist websites, you name it. Second, you don't need wifi to watch a porno--they have these magical things called "DVDs" which have been known to play video (oh, but who pays for porn?). Finally, there's already laws for corrupting the youth which are either generally applicable or not based on the intent of the people involved; if the issue is children being left unsupervised using the internet, regardless of whether it's at home or in Starbucks, that's an issue of child neglect and should be dealt with at that level, not by turning every public wifi owner into a nanny.
Secondly, if you want it, go home and download or if you are really stuck, just buy a personal hotspot thingy from your provider.
Great. So because there's alternatives, we should allow for absurd or capricious laws. I guess if the Prime Minster wants to ban hopscotch on the sidewalk, he can, because there's always parks. And if he wants to ban crossing the street on foot (but skateboards are okay) on even numbered roads, that's okay too. Sure, he and Parliament might have the power, but that doesn't make it any more correct or tolerable.
Lastly (ok that makes 3) it probably reduces your susceptibility to lawsuits (Oh my little johnny say a nipple and is now traumatised, show me the money) as the providers have made a reasonable effort to keep it clean.
It's the internet; there's really no end to where any person could make a "reasonable effort" to stop the flood of information. Beyond that, what's a "reasonable effort"? Paying some 3rd party corporation with a filtering list to take the responsibility--in name only--by making some vague appeal to authority? How is it that if little johnny sees a nipple, the public wifi hotspot has to make a "reasonable effort" to have prevent it, yet somehow little johnny's parents aren't on the hook? And if little johnny's parents took the "reasonable effort", then wouldn't that inherently clear the public wifi hotspot owner?
If anything, a general disclaimer that "the internet is provided uncensored and you're on your own" would seem to put public wifi hotspots off the hook more than a, "well, we tried to keep the porn out, so please don't sue us if we failed" which they most certainly will.
Impossible to do. if a company had say, 20 people working 40 hours a week they had to pay a living wage to, and you cut their time in half while doubling the workforce to 40 to cover all those hours, they would be doubling their payroll expense.
Okay, I'm with you so far. And since in most businesses, payroll is on the order of say 15% or less of expenses (obviously it varies, but the general point remains), total costs would go up 15% making labor costs closer to say 26% or less of expenses.
While that might be possible financially for some businesses, other businesses work on very thin profit margins and the (possible) slight increase in customers from more people having free time (limited to a very few number of industries) would not be enough to cover the cost.
Um, regardless of circumstance, most businesses *should* work on very thin profit margins. Profit, after all, is what is left after accounting for all expenses. In a hypothetical free market, it'd always be zero (with the presumption that the owner's salary, business reinvestment, etc are part of expenses). In short, if expenses rises, then prices will rise to match. It will motivate more automation, yet somehow that automation will not translate into mass unemployment. I can say that confidently because all of the above already happened over fifty years ago, including all the doomsayers.
Most businesses would end up having to close, which would lead to just as many people out of work.
That depends on the monetary policy. If there's too much fear of inflation, yes, government may not print enough money to compensate for all the new "wealth" and businesses will lack the liquidity to continue functioning. But, it isn't a simple given that economic strangulation (or rampant inflation) will happen.
And as someone who currently works only 3 days a week because it is so hard to find real, good full time jobs right now, working only 3 days a week gets boring as hell. I would rather work 5 days than 3. By the 3rd day off I am bored out of my mind.
I feel sad for you, really. But, I also understand where you're coming from. If you have no direction or focus in life, you can use work to fill that void. But, work is a really horrible substitute for having some sort of substance to one's existence. By the same token, the things one buys from work (barring those one needs to live) have the same issue. But once you have a focus, even if it's something you force upon yourself no matter how little innate interest you have in it, you'll find quickly that you could spend a life time doing that activity without being bored--short of sort patches where you may be frustrated with it. The difference between "that activity" and "work" is that you have a lot more control over "that activity"--if and when to switch to something else, what to do, when and how to do it, etc. As you can clearly see, you don't have those luxuries with work and work can be taken away from you in an instance. Beyond that, unless your work is actually producing something substantial--and I mean by your work, not by your inherent collaboration--, it's really unlikely to produce that something of substance; meanwhile, if you choose your activity well, you can produce all matter of substance in your life.
Entertaining. You complain about the OP's rant, then proceed to go on your own tirade.
Of course. I didn't complain that the OP was ranting. I pointed out specific points where he/she failed to really address the issues at hand.
If I decide that a solid religious education is important for my children, there is no reason why the money I pay in taxes should go towards the public school system in my school district. That money should be going to the private school where I send my kids, but I would be prepared to split that with the public school system for services that are shared between the public and private schools. (Example: the private school where I send my kids uses the same textbooks as the public school system, and uses a nurse that is employed by the public school system.)
Um, why? Do I get to not fund the military if I don't like it or not fund medicare because old people can just fend for themselves? No. Why would it be any different with public schooling? Now, that you have the power to do such is possibly true--again the whole point of school boards and what not. But then you'd have to convince a lot of people that it's a good idea to let you and lots of other people--all the non-parents come to mind--to cash out of the system and raise the tax rates for everyone still in the public system. Yea, good luck with that.
You don't get to complain me educating my kids in a private (religious) environment, unless you somehow think the 1st Amendment is magically invalid.
Sure I do. That's precisely what that good old 1st Amendment is all about. I have an inherent right to complain, just as you do. The government can't censor either one of us. Beyond that, me complaining doesn't censor you in any way except to prove the folly of your words and then to let people *chose* to ignore you.
Good parents already do this, regardless of where the kids are going to school. This has nothing to do with what the OP said. Why bring it up?
Oh, because the OP was complaining about *the* current school system and *a* government monopoly. From that, I really don't think the OP was a good, involved parent. Hence, I brought up what a good parent should do. Bad parents lob vague complaints instead, presuming that little Timmy should get A's and C's are a sign of the school system being bad. Quite the contrary, it could well be a sign the school system is bad if Timmy is getting A's and good if he's getting C's.
I know what the budget is for the private school I send my kids to. The teachers are compensated fairly well. (The PTO generally advocates for teacher raises, as a matter of fact.)
What they DON'T spend money on are facilities boondoggles.
So, what "facilities boondoggles" do you speak of? Because that's such a vague complaint, it's really impossible to even know what you're talking about. Since you make it clear that teachers compensated fairly well isn't per se an issue, I'd really like to hear exactly what and where the waste is.
Additionally, the difference between the private school teachers and the public school teachers is quality. My kids have yet to have a bad teacher at their private school. Based on what I have seen, I am expecting them to have zero bad teachers through the day they graduate. In comparison, I was a product of one of the best public school systems in the country, and I can name three bad teachers I had that should have been fired years before I got there.
I will grant you that it is difficult to compute performance for teachers, but there needs to be a way, even if imperfect, before we can even start to have a discussion about teacher salaries. The complaint about the employment disaster that are the teacher's unions is completely valid.
Right. So, what does your private school do? What aspec
The current school system in the US is a bloated government monopoly, indifferent to competing models of schooling. You pay for it through taxes whether you send your kids to public school, private school, or if you homeschool them (or even if you don't have kids at all). There are alternatives to public school in the US, but the government doesn't care. They get their money, even if you shell out for private school or quit your job to homeschool.
Perhaps you should, oh, read something about School districts before going on your little rant? The simple fact is, by far, schools are run at the local level by voter appointed school boards who are in significant control over just how well your local school system functions, be it how much they tax, who they tax, and just how efficiently they use that money in educating students. If your local school system is a bloated mess, odds are good it's in large part your own fault.
At the minimum, parents should receive vouchers equivalent in value to what the local public school system pays per pupil, vouchers that could be redeemed at private schools, or used for homeschooling expenses. This would put real pressure on crappy public schools to reform themselves or face starvation, unlike the misguided "No Child Left Behind Act".
Or, you know, parents could become more involved in *important* aspects of schooling? Instead of focusing on whether or not God is in the classroom, why not push for more of all religions being taught? If little Timmy comes home and gets an A, why not quiz Timmy and see if he really deserved it? And if he gets a C+, why not do the same? Or do you really thing the problem is that Timmy's teacher needs to fear for their job daily or cutting their salary would magically fix things? Would you fearing for your job daily or cutting your salary make you a better worker?
No, I'd say a large part of the problem is that (a) parents abstractly demand a lot of teachers but are generally unqualified to even know if the teachers are doing a good job or not, (b) this stems not from the fact that parents *can't* know these things but many simply refuse to put the effort into it because schooling is treated as a secondary or tertiary thing in their child's life--after all, if it takes so much effort to know those things, then obviously you aren't using them in your own daily life, so it can't be that important, so why relearn it temporarily for your kid's sake--, and (c) parents aren't politically involved enough in ways that matter. Sure, it's easy to get upset that your school is rated badly one year. It's much harder to commit to finding and voting for good people to sit on the school board--especially if that means parents are the ones. It's much harder to actually figure out what's important and what's not when it comes to learning.
But money, oh yea, it's easy enough to (a) demand money and buy into the top rated schools--damn the obvious point that top rated schools are, optimistically, top rated because the students want to succeed (a fact quite missing from little Timmy or you)--or (b) to pay off your own home schooling--which at least will get you involved in schooling but then you're doing even more work than just being well civic minded while still probably providing a disservice to your children when you're not quite enough of an expert in many areas to do a good job of covering plenty of subjects (although presuming you put in the effort, your child will likely eventually learn to be motivated enough and learn on their own which sort of solves that issue).
Of course point (b) sort of hints at another important point. Teach your kids to be motivated to learn, period. That, really, solves most of your problems. You might still want to complain about how much of a "waste" your local school system is, money wise, but then pretending that schools facing starvation will magically solve the pressing issue of parent apathy is just outright delusional and speaks more of a general greed on your part.
Or, maybe it's the "principal" of the thing? Yea, that's the ticket...
The fact that it's currently not true has to do with (a) tax cuts, (b) off-the-books, now-on-the-books wars, and (c) the current economic crisis--the sort that seems to happen at least once a decade. It's precisely those chain of events that is why the debt looks so bad now.
Golly, it's almost as if you got so far in my post and just stopped reading.
This means that the debt keeps getting bigger and bigger, even adjusting for inflation.
And let me quote you a different, more usable graph. Us National Debt - Dollars Relative to GDP. You'll note that over the last decade, the relative percentage of debt to GDP was relatively stable until 2008, the start of the financial crisis. And it really spiked the next year when the off-the-books wars were added to the on-the-books reports by Obama (meaning the graph is spiritually wrong). Btw, you'll notice that coupled with your graph, my point stands. Debt kept getting bigger and bigger even adjusting for inflation, but apparently GDP was growing even faster (by value, not by percentage) which evened out. Of course if you included the wars earlier in the graph, there would have been a more steady rise the whole time and your point would be more valid...but then perhaps we'd have ended the wars earlier and the whole discussion would be a bit more moot.
When a company becomes heavily in debt, shows only the possibility of increasing debt, and its assets can't be liquidated to make up for that debt, the debtors begin to lose trust that this company will ever repay its assets and will stop lending.
The US government is doing exactly that. Sooner or later one of two things is going to happen. Either they print so much money that the dollar gets to a point where no foreign governments will accept it for trade (it has already done that in many places) that it eventually becomes worthless to the US citizens as well, so there would be no point in buying government bonds because you wouldn't gain anything by doing so, which results in the government having no more money to borrow, and government employees (soldiers, teachers, contractors, etc) no longer get paid, so the government basically just shuts down. Or, if they stop printing money, they'll default on their loans, and nobody buys bonds anyways.
Yea, I more or less went through those potential scenarios further into my post. I also pointed out Greece as an example.
Greece is what happens when governments go bankrupt. Now imagine that on a much larger scale.
Bigger riots? Or have you not noticed that Greece, no matter how discontent the population is, is still chugging along? Yeah, there's been a lack of growth in recent years--a predictable result when you cut a lot of jobs and the general growth effect from a big spender. But it's far from an economic collapse. An economic recession, yes. To imagine it on a larger scale, seriously, would just mean a bigger recession--but quite likely at the same percentage rate as Greece shows.
Taxing the shit out of the wealthy won't solve the problem either, for a multitude of reasons. Poor people don't hire other people. Making the rich poor is a bad idea for that reason.
"Poor" people hire other people all the time; be it small b
I'd only register to vote if there was actually a significant movement to balance the budget...
Well, balancing the budget is just, to put it bluntly, a really bad idea. There's a reason companies will frequently borrow to expand themselves. It is often the case that to do so produces better returns than the interest/dividends rates one has to pay on those loans/dividends/whatever. By the same token, government action into funding research (which leads to people/companies expanding the economy) and social programs (which provide a base framework of funding to keep the economic engine running even in bad times) can well pay for themselves. How do I know this to be true? Because rather consistently while the US debt has grown, the GDP has grown at a faster rate. The fact that it's currently not true has to do with (a) tax cuts, (b) off-the-books, now-on-the-books wars, and (c) the current economic crisis--the sort that seems to happen at least once a decade. It's precisely those chain of events that is why the debt looks so bad now. But just like the Great Depression then WW2, there's ample time for economic prosperity in the future to allow for short-term tax increases to reduce the debt for a while and then go back to the slight deficit (relative to GDP) of old.
.... and prevent what I see as an otherwise inevitable catastrophic economic collapse.
Yea, well, economic collapse is always a possible. Even in the best of circumstances, it's been know to happen--all it would take is if another country (say China) over a few years underselling enough critical value goods, for example. But the sort of budgetary situation we're in is unlikely to lead to economic collapse. Look no further than Greece, which I'll get to below.
I don't think that will ever happen though. Once you add social entitlements, no matter how unsustainable or unaffordable, they're basically impossible to get rid of.
Yea, uh, no. Greece pushed though austerity measures which drastically cut back social entitlements--in the form of government jobs--even though they were extremely unpopular. Then they pushed even more austerity measures through. Why? Because once your credit rating goes to junk bond status, you have really only the choices to either (a) bankrupt yourself--in a country, that takes the form of either just writing off the debt and refusing to pay or through hyperinflation by printing money (obviously Greece couldn't really choose the second option as they didn't "own" the Euro)--or (b) take whatever extreme measures your creditors demand--often austerity measures--to guarantee payment. Either way, economic collapse seems rather unlikely because (a) most businesses can still keep operating no matter how defunct the US government becomes and they're the driving force of the economy and (b) as much as that sort of failure of the US government would still have a lot of ripple effects through the economy, it's hard to believe that it would be any worse than the Great Depression which, as horrible as it was, is a survivable circumstance. Of course, another Great Depression is unlikely precisely because of all those social programs.
The best you can do is hedge your assets (gold is a horrible idea BTW) and grab your ankles.
As for the former, your best bet is a very diverse portfolio. For the latter, well, the vast majority of people don't have to worry because the "grab your ankles" part generally applies to taxes on income--ie, it's the top 10% who are most likely to feel the pain if it comes to it*.
*And as bad as one might want to feel for them, I'd much rather be making $1 million/year where the top $750,000 are taxed at 90% and the bottom at $250,000 at 25% (leaving you with net $262,500/year) than to be making $50,000/year (leaving you with net $37,500/year); with the former, after only 10 years of work you could reti
The funny thing is, your comment just gave me a very clear idea. Microsoft really should have, instead of wasting all the time and energy into making Windows 8 and following the tablet crowd, tried to better integrate MCE as a core part of Windows and pushed developers for more 10 foot UIs--which Metro might have been good for coupled with kinetics for gesturing (emphasis on the might, since AFAIK, the issue is really MS's implementation, anyways). But, I'd guess that idea was put off because it might compete with the current/next XBox and it'd cut into the MCE specialty sales. Of course, if Windows 8/RT had really taken off, it'd inherently be competing with Windows Phone--just as Android and iOS span the gambit of portable handheld phone/entertainment devices; then again, considering MS's lack of success in the smartphone space, I don't think they'd see that as a failure to have to retire the Windows Phone line.
And as for competition with the XBox, as you pointed out, the PC is just a different beast. The advantages of single-spec, locked down architecture for a game console are the exact opposite advantages of a multi-spec, very open architecture of a PC. So, I'd say it's more a waste than anything. That's especially true given how people are much more willing to plop a lot of money down for a PC/all-in-one-media-center than a tablet, especially once you factor in things like the cost of a good size TV or the trend for ever cheaper tablets.
In Linux updates are channeled through a central repository so when a user is prompted to update he will do it to pretty much everything in one go. In Windows he will only be updating system files which have not been the target of exploits lately.
So, explain to me against exactly how it is the case that a variety of Linux distributions with very little authority or money can manage to run a central repository to handle things like updates, yet Microsoft under Windows is so beholden to 3rd parties to do the job for them?
In fact, I think the answer is obvious. Windows is dedicated towards a more open software architecture to the point that installation, updates, and removal under Windows is quite horrible and Microsoft has done little to begin to fix the problem. Of course, you'd say, Linux is even more open but only if you accept all the burdens of managing installation, updates, and removal yourself. Ie, Microsoft has simply not setup a central repository to manage the issues even though a central repository would resolve most the issues.
Now the question becomes, why hasn't Microsoft created such a repository? Well, for one, under the guise of freedom, Microsoft has pursued making update tools primarily for their own programs and generally focused on making sure their own house is in order to their own, preferential advantage. By the same token, 3rd parties are rather weary of leaving updating under Microsoft's capable hands because there's an obvious agenda at work at Microsoft which could readily be made detrimental to 3rd parties; there's enough threat that a separate 3rd party repository would inherently need to be maintained and it's somewhat doubtful Microsoft would join such an organization. Finally, there's no central profit motive for Microsoft to making Windows system more secure by making 3rd party tools more up to date--even presuming that'd have a real dent in malware cases; after all, Windows basically sells itself as *the* Desktop OS and Microsoft can always sling blame at other parties, no matter how much people intuitively still blame Windows and Microsoft for effectively creating such an acerbic ecosystem.
PS - No, commercial software that can't be readily redistributed doesn't answer it precisely because there's nothing preventing that software to be treated differently, as either part of some sort of online store or under a similar install setup that's done today (potentially with API hooks to readily support system-based update lookup/download/etc). Nor does old software explain it, as backwards compatibility hacks are all over Windows and the threat of maintaining old systems has not stopped them from revamping all sorts of subsystem substantially, even multiple times--just how many 2D acceleration architectures are in WIndows, again? But, like I said, it doesn't advantage Microsoft much because it does very little to encourage lock-in; but Microsoft Update does encourage Microsoft-product lock-in.
I think you have your answer to your own problems. In the future, make sure all contracts have "Terms of Service" in the title and make sure their signing pen has a cpu in it, hence they're using a CPU. Ergo, you too will have the power to lock people up for ToS violations.
No, he was. As has been quite widely discussed here and elsewhere he was accused of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and, from what I've read, he probably was actually "guilty". And, yes, 35 years is the actual punishment.
No, he probably wasn't "strictly guilty"; he may well have been "technically guilty" under an absurd interpretation of the CFAA but by the same way almost everyone is "technically guilty" of jaywalking or conspiracy. You see, language, even used in writing laws, is often very ambiguous. The obvious intent of the CFAA was to protect against actual fraud and abuse through computers. And the harsh punishment of 35 years was intent upon the most extreme cases of that abuse. To the point, there's nothing in the CFAA that strictly matches what Swartz was doing but instead there was leeway room in the language that could allow prosecutors to try individuals upon technical language put in place in the act so that nearly strictly guilty cases could be prosecuted successfully.
Sure, the prosecutors have discretion in prosecuting crimes, but I continue to be amazed that all of our abuse is heaped upon the prosecutors for trying to enforce a law THAT CONGRESS ACTUALLY PASSED. Don't get me wrong, I think that 35 years (or, really, any punishment at all) for what Swartz did is nuts.And I think that there is an under-appreciated moral dimension to the prosecution decisions that US attorneys make.
You're right, to an extent, of course. But then legislators are in the same boat. They need to write laws that are broad enough to cover their intended crime yet specific enough not to be abused by, potentially well-meaning, prosecutors. They have to offer severe punishment for the most extreme abuse outlined, yet they have to try to spell out that it only applies in the extreme cases without prosecutors, again potentially well-meaning, contorting the language to apply such in what would reasonably not be extreme cases. Look no further than conspiracy laws to see a great example of the issue and the near intractability of the problem. To that end, this is precisely the reason why prosecutors are a main component of the justice system, for they can instill human judgment into potential cases.
But then again, do we really want a system where the prosecutors feel free to enforce a law or not based on their own preferences? Isn't this what a legislature is for? Why are we focusing on the prosecutors who tried to enforce it instead of the actual people who passed and have the power to fix the law?
Prosecutors are, by definition, charged with seeking justice. That inherently means a need for them to make judgments on who to seek punishment upon and what sort of sentence terms to seek. If they feel a crime is committed yet applicable laws offer no reasonable punishment, their hands are tied and they should not prosecute under the more severe law nor under another law with more reasonable punishment but inapplicable charges. Yes, the legislature is charged with fixing laws, making them just, and making them clear. But when they fail or simply do not act, it is not the job of the prosecutor to warp the language of the law; the ends do not justify the means.
Personally, I'd imagine there'd be a lot less focus on the prosecutors if they had (a) publicly called upon legislators to fix the law so they could reasonable prosecute cases, (b) publicly called for the CFAA to be heavily changed so it's much harder for less competent prosecutors to abuse suspects with the CFAA with unreasonable charges or punishments, and (c) to have not actually prosecuted the case but instead acknowledged that their hands were tied under the intent of the law and under a sense of justice.
... it ties into my point in a different thread that a few assholes are going to ruin things for everyone.
You're right. University administrators are too interested in CYOA to actually do the right thing. They are assholes.
Oh, and if you were referring to the "terrorists" (as others have put it), well, no, they don't have the power to do jack squat, so they're clearly not the assholes who ruined things for everyone. It's the University administrators that cowered and changed policy. And it's not like gun hoaxes or denial of services are some magically new thing that warrants *any* change in policy--just like terrorists attacking planes or destroying buildings wasn't a new thing on 9/11. No, this is just cowardly kowtowing to--well--hypothetical parents and hypothetical interest groups. What part of "I am deeply and personally committed to safeguarding our community, protecting our campus and securing our systems." doesn't scream kiss-ass, double-talk?
The most secure systems in the world are the ones that are constantly under attack. They're the ones that have to actually combat real-world threats and not just all those hypothetical, isolated ones. Evolution itself is predicated on that very idea, that nature and life is a savage world in which there's a constant struggle all-over the place and extinction-level events have occurred repeatedly. To turn tail and thinking closing off their network will solve things... No, I don't think they believe that. But, it does suddenly give the IT department--and by extension the University administration--(a) the power to deny people on a whim and (b) the power to otherwise monitor activity that they would otherwise be completely unaware of--and that's a good sign that suddenly having monitoring activity will grant them to make non-issues issues predicated on their own beliefs.
In short, the ultimate goal of University should be to enrich the lives of their students, professors, etc by broadening their horizons. No part of IT department or administration micro-management really should enter into it--and sadly, I think it happens too much already with department heads in general treating their department as their personal fiefdom, so I can see where the administrators would get the idea. What's next? Random dorm room inspections?
Yes, but "corporate entityhood" isn't an inflammatory subject. Saying "corporate personhood" ignites a bit of cognitive dissonance, so the politics start off biased.
The reason it starts off biased is precisely because entities don't have rights but people do. And while Congress and the Supreme Court have on various occasions shown an interest in curtailing those rights under often dubious standards, the fact that corporations have billions of dollars to spend trying to expand their "rights" often translates into what people fear most, that corporations have more say in what happens than real people do.
There's no need to treat an entity exactly like a person, but only to an extent. "Free speech", as it's been interpreted over the past 200 years, means any form of expression, including production and commerce. Tangentially, this means that using a 3D printer to make a gun is exercising both your first and second amendment rights at once.
Which is more a byproduct of both company overreach, to avoid state or federal law, and federal government overreach, to allow them to regulate things like the lack of commerce as a form of interstate commerce. It stands to reason, then, that with such a mash up it becomes even more important to not pretend like corporations are people.
A corporation must have some measure of free expression, to produce products that the government may not like (as Paladin Press does regularly, for example). A corporation's expression does not need to include financial donations to a political party, but specifying that distinction would require significant changes to the Constitution.
Not really. "The press" is already well covered under the First Amendment as an example of where government may not tread. And the point of financial donations aren't directly covered under the federal government since that's almost all done at the state level. In fact, states were meant to be primary guardians against corporation abuse precisely because as much as the federal government was bound to respect all speech, states were not.
Agreed. Unfortunately, they didn't do anything to limit what rights companies had. We inherited the slippery slope they left for us.
I think you might be interested in reading The History of Corporations in the United States. You have to remember that a large issue at the foundation of the US was just how much the US government would federalist vs confederalist. As a result, a lot of big issues were put on to states to deal with with the idea that the US government would be something of a referee if state actions started to effect other states--hence the various language about resolving interstate commerce or other sorts of disputes. More the point, by placing the power of corporate charters in the hands of states, it was likely felt that, worst-case, a corporation would only have the power to usurp the power of one state vs all the states if left to the US government to charter. Of course, that's turned into a sort of rent seeking where lots of corporations setup shop officially in Delaware--just like in Ireland*, and sadly there's no simple fix to the point of interstate commerce if you can't tariff products from a usurped state.
So, I'd say the truth is closer to the founding fathers simply not being world-renowned economists and believing that enough compartmentalization and democracy would work through such issues. But, then you have massive sums of money from corporations and a third branch of government, the courts, that often seem too affixed to the letter of the law or the spirit of the law to suit the current establishment... So, I'm not sure there's any real simple way that the issue could have been addressed. Put another way, if corporations *had* been mentioned in the US Constitution, then i
The conclusions might be erroneous, the conclusions might be almost-right, the conclusions might be perfectly on target. But, OBVIOUSLY, someone needs to look at *whatever* people, make some attempt to determine which *whatever* people are legal, and which are not, which are law abiding, and which are not, and SHIP OUT THE ONES WHO DON'T BELONG!
So, how do you determine which people are legal? And on what basis do you only deport the non-"law abiding" illegal ones or really have that as a basis for anything except as the start of being able to tell if a person is illegal.
Or, are you of the opinion that anyone and everyone in the world who wishes to "improve their lives" should just drop in, and expect the US to provide for them?
No more than I think the US should provide for you. There is a rather extreme absurdity in the idea of citizenship. It was at one time a descriptive term--to say you were a citizen of a town/city/country meant you lived there. Now, it's a prescriptive term--to say you are a citizen of a town/city/country means you're legally entitled to live there. Who should pay taxes should be linked to who lives in an area. Who derives benefits in an area should be those who live in an area. There's no real logical basis to think that being 1cm within designated borders should magically leave you to "expect the US to provide for [you]" nor should which vagina you happen to drop out of nor who happened to be the inseminator of your life really determined how much cash the rest of you should give you.
About the only real logical reason I can see to prescribe citizenship is to (1) provide a framework to limit what the government can do to fuck you over by making it clear that you live somewhere--but that really speaks of a limiting of scope instead of treating all people as equal and allows for "enemy combatant" and other selective relabelling/redistricting/whatever to justify abuse--, (2) to slow down immigration so the free flow of individuals doesn't create economic collapse because of the influx of immigrants--but that practice isn't practiced in-country and there's been plenty of examples where there's been just as ample reason to, say, slow down Easterners from moving to California in the post Civil War era--, or (3) to properly track people for income taxes, or similarly applied taxes, purposes--but then that falls upon government to put a short lease on businesses which clearly is the more fundamental problem in the regard, anyways.
People who are incapable of distinguishing subtle details hear that "suspicion of brown-ness" sound byte, and assume that it is exactly the same as "driving while black". Yeah - they are somewhat similar. But, you might consider the fact that "driving while black" targets people who are perfectly legal, while "suspicion of brown-ness" targets illegal aliens, many of whom are breaking a lot more laws than just immigration.
"Driving while black" targets people who are presumed guilty of a crime, based on fun statistics that note the higher incarceration rate of male blacks, especially in "bad black neighborhoods"--feel free to note a lack of "bad white neighborhoods" with "driving while white". "Suspicion of brown-ness" is precisely the same presumption of guilty of a crime, based on the fun stats you suggest above. In both cases, there's clearly something wrong with presuming a person guilty and demanding they prove their innocence in some way or just generally harassing people because of your presumptions. And to add to the point, when it becomes clear that you need a "legal" reason to pull someone over and harass them for their ID, you just make up something like speeding regardless of whether they were or not. Unless they have ample evidence to the contrary and are well connected, its "[black/brown] [wo]man's word vs a cop", with potential insinuation of racism that likely will get a person no where, especially as it's
Guess what? I believe that heteroexuality is flat out wrong as well.
Oh wait, no I don't. In fact, I'm hard pressed to think of anyone who's suggested anything of the sort. By the same token, I don't think I've heard anyone say "homosexuality is a normal thing that's absolutely wonderful for everybody". Now, I have heard things like "homosexuality is a normal thing" and "[having] [your own sexual preference/desire] is a normal thing that's absolute wonderful for everybody". But, that has more to do with recognizing that sexual desire is very much an internal aspect of oneself and that society or government or whatever trying to force you to change is wrong. It also stems from the whole point that nature is full of homosexual/bi-sexual behavior, so in that way it's quite a normal thing.
Now, whether you want to argue that it's ethical or moral, that's a whole other point. But claiming that personal lifestyle choices are "damaging to the nation" seems incredibly absurd on its face unless you mean "damaging to the status quo of the nation". But, then, I don't think the current status quo of any nation is perfect and should be preserved blindly on its face. So, if being more tolerant of other people in their own personal lifestyle choices results in more tolerance to homosexuality, that's just how it is. It is not "damaging to the nation" to accept that you should butt outside of business that is not your own and has no effect on you except in the most fleeting sense that you inherently have to tolerate other people who do things you don't like more or have to explain the same to your children.
But that last part is pretty well the foundation of what is America in many ways. It's just that through time we've come to recognize more and more just what more can be reasonably tolerated in others.
While it may be a "failure of democracy", it wouldn't inherently be "the end of democracy". The former is a point where democracy for or against a point is thwarted. The latter is when "failure of democracy" is the norm. Failure of democracy is a necessary feature of a republic that wants something more than simple majority mob rule. A recognition of human rights is a big aspect of that.
Pursuant to that, is the fact that the Declaration of Independence was a statement about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", all of which are often threatened by the majority. That the American constitution effectively required a Bill of Rights because it was perceived how quickly representatives would bypass the unwritten assumption that one couldn't reinterpret the Constitution to grant whatever power Congress wanted for the day or the very fact that the Supreme Court effectively decided upon itself to judge the legality and enforceablility of laws heavily stems from this.
So, while Orson Scott Card could be right about "the end of democracy", I just don't inherently see it in your example or what is happening in the US. Marriage seems about as much a right as sex (or speech or guns or lots of things). And as much as government can certainly put caveats on age or consent (or time of day or loudness or training or whatever) to mold those things, it seems pretty clear that an outright ban goes well beyond the scope of anything that is the business of government to pursue or enforce, be it a tyranny or a democracy. It's one reason why the whole "end to democracy" seems more of a red herring than anything that sounds like a good rallying cry but really misses the core issue of whether government should be involved. It's also one reason why right-wing "social conservatives" are such hypocrites.:(
It doesn't matter his affiliation or if he likes or even works for MS or not. Judge the statement on it's own, and it's true.
Right, it's a very true statement. There's a lot of duplication of effort produced by having a lot of pointless recompiles or needlessly deep library linking. While there's certainly no perfectly right solution--although I'll put a partial suggestion below--, Windows approach is very much the wrong solution, IMHO. I really don't know enough about Mac OS X on how they deal with the issue, except that Apple tends to just drop backwards compatibility on things every once in a while.
It's something Linux geeks have trouble admitting, but it is the sole reason Linux usage has not skyrocketed in adoption.
Nah, I don't think it's the sole reason for Linux usage not skyrocketing in adoption. Sure, commercial support, especially in games, would likely spur a lot more people who are hesitant to switch. But for most people, Windows is "good enough" and without any philosophical reason to switch, I don't think they'd go through the effort. This is especially true given how Wine is far from perfect and plenty of programs are unlikely to be ported to Linux ever--the company behind them are defunct.
If the LSB worked anthing close to how it was envisioned, developers would flock to the platform and then so would users.
Yeah, LSB prevented binary fragmentation in Linux just like POSIX prevented binary fragmentation in Unix. Oh, wait, no. Seriously, LSB has more to do with maintaining source compatibility and having convenient guidelines so most distros store a lot of stuff in vaguely the same locations. To actually have something equivalent to a non-fragmented Linux ecosystem, you'd need something more than a L[inux] S[tardard] B[ase] and something more like a L[inux] S[tandard] P[latform] which mandated a lot of libraries at certain versions associated at specific locations and it'd require at least quarterly updates including provisions for the same dll hell that is standard in Windows.
My not so humble suggestion would be to mandate the use of gettext on just about all strings, especially paths and libraries to allow distros to more readily override presumptions of binaries on where stuff should be and whatever. Such is far from a complete solution because, as I noted, you still have to mandate libraries to include in distros, which versions to include, etc*. But it'd be a much closer step to resolving the ridiculous mess currently used.
At the moment, people use the distro they like and defend, while non linux geeks use distros like Ubuntu or Mint, which are the only platforms commercial developers tend to target.
A small point, but I currently use Ubuntu and I wouldn't call myself a "non-linux geek". Nor do I really go out of my way to defend my distro of choice.:) Much like Windows users, I chose a distro and since it's "good enough", I've stuck with it. In the end, Linux is Linux, so it doesn't matter a lot to me. What does matter to me is that I can almost always get the source code for just about anything on my system if I really want to. And if I'm really stubborn about it, I can run my own custom code even after Ubuntu decides to move on to something else.
It's that long-term point that's really my main reason for sticking with Linux. Long-term migration with Linux seems a lot more reasonable in a lot of ways because as much as a hassle as it is, it's still better than potentially no migration.
*And this is one major reason why I don't even push my suggestion or try to implement it. There's no way I'm willing to try to create a LSP or entice distros to follow it. It's a lot of effort with a lot of headaches involved, especially when it comes to unit testing a lot of binaries to make sure they still run. Well, that, and as much as LSB is decried and in many way
DRM isn't about preventing you from making copies. It's about controlling use of a work, be it to prevent you from using copies or even from using the original be it all or or for a limited times or certain hours of the day or a certain location or whatever, without first removing the DRM; in essence, it's a digital monitor of your use of a "protected work". Because of how it functions, it has to give you the key to the lock it creates, so it functionally is rather analogous to a "Do no remove" tag with federal penalties. To that end, sure you can duplicate the chair exactly, but if you use the chair once, all duplicates only have 7 uses. Use one of those, all its progeny only have 6 uses. In essence, it's an attempt to recreate the analog bleed down effect from copying--admittedly, with use being the actual bleeder--or Monsanto's terminator genes.
So as long as you get a clean copy of the 8 use chair, you can indefinitely clone and use it without breaking the DRM. But that's obvious a horrible waste of resources when it's a perfectly good chair. Of course, that's the core lesson. DRM is all about making the situation worse for all those involved. And for what end? So the original creator of the chair has "rights management" over its use.
You can argue all you want how it has to be physical to use so it's different--a thing I question a lot with 3D printing and copyrightable specs becoming big--, but that seems to be more an issue of tedium and semantics. The same could be also done in an online game with a digital chair. Making it physical is merely to make the point physically clear. And calling it DRM is because it's the close analogy available given that nothing as absurd as DRM exists inherently to reality which is precisely why it had to be enacted into law to exist.
To that end, could see legal enforcement of DRM as a reasonable compromise in society because of a desire by society for more copyrighted works. To me, DRM is simply too absurd to be reasonable as any sort of a compromise and a "DRM" chair illustrates the point. While I'm certainly sure there are places where it could be of use-- rentals come to mind--, it would seem to me but a poor excuse for forcing such notions on a rather limitless supply of work available through digital copying--ie, rentals only make sense when there's something "physical" to rent and hence there's a need to return for which a copy and sharing removes that need.
In short, DRM seems more in line to prop up industry that is not well suited towards a future where that industry no longer makes sense. Finding out just how society should actually face the inherent changes in a digital world would be a more worthwhile venture, and I honestly think DRM is a great example of sending great minds to waste their effort on such a thing instead of leading towards the invariable future. Of course, those who have seized the future are leading the way anyways, so such is more a moot point of wasted resources.
Not just satellite view per se. Consider that just about every type of weather data gathering device will be blocked as well since most are likely to capture an image of in-property doppler shift of rain drops or a radar map of fog/cloud cover or a temperature map of potentially radiating heat*. Of course, it's entirely absurd that the requirement whether a vehicle is unmanned or not since I'm pretty sure if the whole idea is that the images are a violation in themselves that having a living witness really changes things. But, then, as the summary states, it has more to do with combating those damn hippies and their damn legal evidence gathering to capture crooked companies. Those poor, poor crooked companies.
*It's interesting, actually, because the point reminds me of police using thermal vision equipment to detect heat lamps as evidence to get a warrant to bust pot growers. That was stricken down as unconstitutional because it used uncommon equipment--a silly argument--and saw things that a personally reasonably thought would be private--a more solid argument, I think. Of course, weather satellites don't seem to do anything close to the sort of detail to detect such things inside public residences. But, then, all the court ruling did was affirm what was or was not admissible evidence. Now, if the legislator had tried to take that angle, I'd probably be more appreciative. The catch-22, at least from their perspective, is how much it'd just as well limit things like, oh, any sort of police airplane/helicopter use to track suspects or gather evidence. And that doesn't even get into all the potentially planned police use of drones to take over the mentioned police airplane/helicopter use of today. Then again, I'd imagine police would just be treated above the law in this case, though oddly not enough to be "damn hippies" themselves and track down said crooked companies so private citizens wouldn't have to bother.
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Well, I tend to think of quantum mechanics as proving the universe functions on call-by-need, with faster than light being the lack of support for mutation. Entangling then is really just call-by-need evaluating out a circumstance backwards far enough to note that when two waves/particles/whatever were at the same place, they had to have certain exclusionary properties (for the article, one photon was polarized vertically and the other horizontally) which cause the interpretation of entanglement.
Of course, all of the above says nothing of the how or why of it. And no doubt, I'm likely far off in really understanding on quantum mechanics. But, it at least helps me better understand it.
Um...yeah...perhaps you've never heard of 'iOS jailbreaking"? Seriously, even with MS vetted drivers (a mandatory part of 64-bit Windows), almost entirely non-Admin user programs (because of how Windows is designed, there are a handful of MS programs that run at higher privilege to provide the Win32/64 environemnt), things like stack smashing protection, data execution prevention, randomized application offsets, and even sandboxing (admittedly, only rarely done), Pown2Own still clearly shows that IE and Windows 8 are vulnerable. Slapping on Secure Boot wouldn't do a damn thing. And the idea that MS can successfully vet software just falls flat on its face when it fails to adequate protects is own software--unless you think that's some sort of conspiracy.
No, in all seriousness, writing secure software is incredibly hard. My personal problem with MS has more to do with their marketing of Windows as "secure" and "robust" for ages--it was a big selling point as far back as NT 4.0 (probably sooner). And in retrospect, we can see that that was either ignorant/arrogant optimism or just marketer bullshit. I'd contribute it to both, and I don't see the situation changing.with MS or any other non-conservative organization. Really, OpenBSD is about the closest you'll ever get to a secure/robust system, but even there that really translates into a box with very limited software options--anything more and you've stepped out of vetted secure/robust.
PS - And yea, I'd say just about every *nix is guilty of overclaiming robustness and security. The big differences is the degree and just how much it's the organization itself and its many members/fans. I really don't see the same sort of out-of-the-horses-mouth BS that you see in MS PR (or just about any company PR, really). But, to know that's the nature of the beast sort of proves the point on why your claims seem absurd.
A much better analogy would be sheet music and performances. It makes little sense to pretend that sheet music and performances are identical and simply handing performances to the sheet music author seems pretty preposterous.
The fact that there's a mechanical licensing system for music has a lot to do with preventing the sort of absurdity that Nintendo seems to be pulling, the idea that they can monopolize all photos, videos, whatever of any game they ever made--outside a very limited scope. Of course with music, the absurdity was realized very early on. It took something like Youtube and micro-based payments before the situation came down to the level of game performances; before then, there wasn't enough hard currency for Nintendo, or anyone really, to flex their muscle on the subject.
PS - Ask "Which path do you think the Tolkein Estate would take?" is sort of like asking "What would a pyromaniac do with kindling?". It's the great shortsightedness of many authors, like Twain, to not understand that in trying to further copyright past their own life, all they have done is given "Estates" an excuse to be nothing more than useless, money-grubbing parasites. It entirely misses the point of copyright, to reward authors--not their children, grandchildren, et al. That a *live* author should shower his children, grandchildren, et al with that reward is his/her own prerogative. To codify it into law is absurd. And yea, I can see the sticky situation of an author dying young or a very old person seeing very little financial worth to writing. But, that's more a core truth of the inequities of life. Granting copyright past death doesn't really fix anything.
That reminds me of the joke about the man who finds a genie. The genie says he can grant three wishes, but for each one granted the man's worst enemy will receive twice as much of it. The man makes two wishes of great fortune. For his final wish, he wishes to be cast half-dead.
The point, then, is that if nature alone in greenhouse gas emissions is slowly (read, on the scale of thousands of years) shifting us into another ice age, man suddenly pumping anywhere close to the same amount (making humans on the order of 50% responsible for current greenhouse gas emissions) may radically (read, on the scale of hundreds of years or perhaps even decades) shift us towards global warming. So, the question isn't the strawman of 50% man-made greenhouse gases but (a) if there are significant man-made greenhouse gases and (b) how much, if any, shift those gases will have on the climate. Well, the studies show on the order of what nature puts out and our knowledge of nature's own greenhouse gas emissions and their forcing effects (read, they're what keep us from being in a perpetual ice age) tells us that there's something to worry about with the only real debate as of now the exact scale and speed of warming.
But, yea, keep tilting at the irrelevant points that you make up.
Or perhaps evidence about the stupidity of man? Who, after all, spent all the time and money developing war games computers just to either (a) "win" at Global Thermonuclear War or (b) never actually fight (yet still spend billions of dollars to achieve nothing)?
PS - Yea, I know you're just joking. But, to me the point is more sad than funny.
Last year's PC sales were on the order of 348 million, down about 4.5 million from the year before. That means, that if all PCs in the last 6 months were sold with Windows 8, you'd expect about 174 million in sales--obviously that figure is off because there's likely a burst in sales at different times in the year, not every manufacturer instantly switches to selling Windows 8, those that do switch often offer multiple model lines of which some won't include Windows 8 for corporate/other purposes, and then there's all the Mac OS X/Linux machines... In any case, hand waving "lower demand for PCs in general" is a good deal of heavy BS.
That's a point that hits it on the head. Windows 8 isn't compelling enough to buy a new machine--like say, a tablet--and directly retail upgrades have never been the main way in which one version of Windows (since at least Windows 95) have supplanted the previous version. Instead, it has been pretty consistently the ever greater PC sales coupled with a lower install base to begin with. Ie, people with Windows 95 bought new machines with Windows 98, but more importantly a lot of people without computers bought machines with Windows 98 and perhaps doubled the number of computer owners.
So, yea, ever since Windows XP or so, the market has become rather saturated and the only way one tends to see a shift in numbers is either (a) a whole new "type" of computer (smart phones, for example) which increase the pool and can shift percentages massively or (b) the slow, yet methodical, death of machines and their new replacements having the latest version of Windows (usually). Given how Metro was trying to push for (a) (ignoring how it'd likely be an incarnation of (b)), I'd say the figures are pretty dismal.
Which isn't saying much. Windows has heavy vendor lock-in on programs people need/want/expect to use. Couple that with a lot of OEMs preloading Windows 8 on millions of machines, and you'd expect it to become a "popular" OS if nothing else because people can still run said programs, no matter how much they otherwise hate the OS. Hell, Windows 98 might score higher than Windows 8 if there was the option of it instead of Windows 8 over the last 10 years--especially because of the Vista days :)
Nah, I'd say my main issue is just how much "genetic modification" is no silver bullet. As this article goes on about, using Roundup Ready resistant crops just encourages more herbicide usage. And just like there being super microbes resistant to antibiotics from overuse, there's now super weeds resistant to Roundup Ready. I mean, obviously some of that's just inevitable--that's the magic of evolution. But, it makes clear the point that if GMO crops are to be a part of the mix in an area, they should be offsetable in a reasonable period of time with non-GMO crops.
The problem, of course, is that farmers will reasonably just do whatever is economical. And even with mandates to plant some many acres of non-GMO crop for some many acres of GMO crop, it's clearly a vested interest of regulators and farmers to push for unsafe limits and to ignore as long as possible the adverse effects until it's too late. It'd be clearly different if, oh, we were try to actually wipe out certain weeds or insects with a herbicide/insecticide program. But that's generally not a viable issue--and it'd possibly be ecologically disastrous. So, there clearly needs to be a lot more planning and oversight than what is really being done. And that doesn't even get into the issue of cross-pollination of GMO crops with similar species plants. :/
How about, "It's none of the government's business what I do when it comes to my wifi spot, public or private, unless *I* am doing something illegal; and just making anything I do illegal doesn't count."
So, we need to protect children and adults from a lack of their own common sense? How about, if you browse porn in Starbucks and it disturbs other customers, you get kicked out? Because there's a lot more than porn that'll disturb other customers--loud music, racist websites, you name it. Second, you don't need wifi to watch a porno--they have these magical things called "DVDs" which have been known to play video (oh, but who pays for porn?). Finally, there's already laws for corrupting the youth which are either generally applicable or not based on the intent of the people involved; if the issue is children being left unsupervised using the internet, regardless of whether it's at home or in Starbucks, that's an issue of child neglect and should be dealt with at that level, not by turning every public wifi owner into a nanny.
Great. So because there's alternatives, we should allow for absurd or capricious laws. I guess if the Prime Minster wants to ban hopscotch on the sidewalk, he can, because there's always parks. And if he wants to ban crossing the street on foot (but skateboards are okay) on even numbered roads, that's okay too. Sure, he and Parliament might have the power, but that doesn't make it any more correct or tolerable.
It's the internet; there's really no end to where any person could make a "reasonable effort" to stop the flood of information. Beyond that, what's a "reasonable effort"? Paying some 3rd party corporation with a filtering list to take the responsibility--in name only--by making some vague appeal to authority? How is it that if little johnny sees a nipple, the public wifi hotspot has to make a "reasonable effort" to have prevent it, yet somehow little johnny's parents aren't on the hook? And if little johnny's parents took the "reasonable effort", then wouldn't that inherently clear the public wifi hotspot owner?
If anything, a general disclaimer that "the internet is provided uncensored and you're on your own" would seem to put public wifi hotspots off the hook more than a, "well, we tried to keep the porn out, so please don't sue us if we failed" which they most certainly will.
Okay, I'm with you so far. And since in most businesses, payroll is on the order of say 15% or less of expenses (obviously it varies, but the general point remains), total costs would go up 15% making labor costs closer to say 26% or less of expenses.
Um, regardless of circumstance, most businesses *should* work on very thin profit margins. Profit, after all, is what is left after accounting for all expenses. In a hypothetical free market, it'd always be zero (with the presumption that the owner's salary, business reinvestment, etc are part of expenses). In short, if expenses rises, then prices will rise to match. It will motivate more automation, yet somehow that automation will not translate into mass unemployment. I can say that confidently because all of the above already happened over fifty years ago, including all the doomsayers.
That depends on the monetary policy. If there's too much fear of inflation, yes, government may not print enough money to compensate for all the new "wealth" and businesses will lack the liquidity to continue functioning. But, it isn't a simple given that economic strangulation (or rampant inflation) will happen.
I feel sad for you, really. But, I also understand where you're coming from. If you have no direction or focus in life, you can use work to fill that void. But, work is a really horrible substitute for having some sort of substance to one's existence. By the same token, the things one buys from work (barring those one needs to live) have the same issue. But once you have a focus, even if it's something you force upon yourself no matter how little innate interest you have in it, you'll find quickly that you could spend a life time doing that activity without being bored--short of sort patches where you may be frustrated with it. The difference between "that activity" and "work" is that you have a lot more control over "that activity"--if and when to switch to something else, what to do, when and how to do it, etc. As you can clearly see, you don't have those luxuries with work and work can be taken away from you in an instance. Beyond that, unless your work is actually producing something substantial--and I mean by your work, not by your inherent collaboration--, it's really unlikely to produce that something of substance; meanwhile, if you choose your activity well, you can produce all matter of substance in your life.
Of course. I didn't complain that the OP was ranting. I pointed out specific points where he/she failed to really address the issues at hand.
Um, why? Do I get to not fund the military if I don't like it or not fund medicare because old people can just fend for themselves? No. Why would it be any different with public schooling? Now, that you have the power to do such is possibly true--again the whole point of school boards and what not. But then you'd have to convince a lot of people that it's a good idea to let you and lots of other people--all the non-parents come to mind--to cash out of the system and raise the tax rates for everyone still in the public system. Yea, good luck with that.
Sure I do. That's precisely what that good old 1st Amendment is all about. I have an inherent right to complain, just as you do. The government can't censor either one of us. Beyond that, me complaining doesn't censor you in any way except to prove the folly of your words and then to let people *chose* to ignore you.
Oh, because the OP was complaining about *the* current school system and *a* government monopoly. From that, I really don't think the OP was a good, involved parent. Hence, I brought up what a good parent should do. Bad parents lob vague complaints instead, presuming that little Timmy should get A's and C's are a sign of the school system being bad. Quite the contrary, it could well be a sign the school system is bad if Timmy is getting A's and good if he's getting C's.
So, what "facilities boondoggles" do you speak of? Because that's such a vague complaint, it's really impossible to even know what you're talking about. Since you make it clear that teachers compensated fairly well isn't per se an issue, I'd really like to hear exactly what and where the waste is.
Right. So, what does your private school do? What aspec
Perhaps you should, oh, read something about School districts before going on your little rant? The simple fact is, by far, schools are run at the local level by voter appointed school boards who are in significant control over just how well your local school system functions, be it how much they tax, who they tax, and just how efficiently they use that money in educating students. If your local school system is a bloated mess, odds are good it's in large part your own fault.
Or, you know, parents could become more involved in *important* aspects of schooling? Instead of focusing on whether or not God is in the classroom, why not push for more of all religions being taught? If little Timmy comes home and gets an A, why not quiz Timmy and see if he really deserved it? And if he gets a C+, why not do the same? Or do you really thing the problem is that Timmy's teacher needs to fear for their job daily or cutting their salary would magically fix things? Would you fearing for your job daily or cutting your salary make you a better worker?
No, I'd say a large part of the problem is that (a) parents abstractly demand a lot of teachers but are generally unqualified to even know if the teachers are doing a good job or not, (b) this stems not from the fact that parents *can't* know these things but many simply refuse to put the effort into it because schooling is treated as a secondary or tertiary thing in their child's life--after all, if it takes so much effort to know those things, then obviously you aren't using them in your own daily life, so it can't be that important, so why relearn it temporarily for your kid's sake--, and (c) parents aren't politically involved enough in ways that matter. Sure, it's easy to get upset that your school is rated badly one year. It's much harder to commit to finding and voting for good people to sit on the school board--especially if that means parents are the ones. It's much harder to actually figure out what's important and what's not when it comes to learning.
But money, oh yea, it's easy enough to (a) demand money and buy into the top rated schools--damn the obvious point that top rated schools are, optimistically, top rated because the students want to succeed (a fact quite missing from little Timmy or you)--or (b) to pay off your own home schooling--which at least will get you involved in schooling but then you're doing even more work than just being well civic minded while still probably providing a disservice to your children when you're not quite enough of an expert in many areas to do a good job of covering plenty of subjects (although presuming you put in the effort, your child will likely eventually learn to be motivated enough and learn on their own which sort of solves that issue).
Of course point (b) sort of hints at another important point. Teach your kids to be motivated to learn, period. That, really, solves most of your problems. You might still want to complain about how much of a "waste" your local school system is, money wise, but then pretending that schools facing starvation will magically solve the pressing issue of parent apathy is just outright delusional and speaks more of a general greed on your part.
Or, maybe it's the "principal" of the thing? Yea, that's the ticket...
Golly, it's almost as if you got so far in my post and just stopped reading.
And let me quote you a different, more usable graph. Us National Debt - Dollars Relative to GDP. You'll note that over the last decade, the relative percentage of debt to GDP was relatively stable until 2008, the start of the financial crisis. And it really spiked the next year when the off-the-books wars were added to the on-the-books reports by Obama (meaning the graph is spiritually wrong). Btw, you'll notice that coupled with your graph, my point stands. Debt kept getting bigger and bigger even adjusting for inflation, but apparently GDP was growing even faster (by value, not by percentage) which evened out. Of course if you included the wars earlier in the graph, there would have been a more steady rise the whole time and your point would be more valid...but then perhaps we'd have ended the wars earlier and the whole discussion would be a bit more moot.
Yea, I more or less went through those potential scenarios further into my post. I also pointed out Greece as an example.
Bigger riots? Or have you not noticed that Greece, no matter how discontent the population is, is still chugging along? Yeah, there's been a lack of growth in recent years--a predictable result when you cut a lot of jobs and the general growth effect from a big spender. But it's far from an economic collapse. An economic recession, yes. To imagine it on a larger scale, seriously, would just mean a bigger recession--but quite likely at the same percentage rate as Greece shows.
"Poor" people hire other people all the time; be it small b
Well, balancing the budget is just, to put it bluntly, a really bad idea. There's a reason companies will frequently borrow to expand themselves. It is often the case that to do so produces better returns than the interest/dividends rates one has to pay on those loans/dividends/whatever. By the same token, government action into funding research (which leads to people/companies expanding the economy) and social programs (which provide a base framework of funding to keep the economic engine running even in bad times) can well pay for themselves. How do I know this to be true? Because rather consistently while the US debt has grown, the GDP has grown at a faster rate. The fact that it's currently not true has to do with (a) tax cuts, (b) off-the-books, now-on-the-books wars, and (c) the current economic crisis--the sort that seems to happen at least once a decade. It's precisely those chain of events that is why the debt looks so bad now. But just like the Great Depression then WW2, there's ample time for economic prosperity in the future to allow for short-term tax increases to reduce the debt for a while and then go back to the slight deficit (relative to GDP) of old.
Yea, well, economic collapse is always a possible. Even in the best of circumstances, it's been know to happen--all it would take is if another country (say China) over a few years underselling enough critical value goods, for example. But the sort of budgetary situation we're in is unlikely to lead to economic collapse. Look no further than Greece, which I'll get to below.
Yea, uh, no. Greece pushed though austerity measures which drastically cut back social entitlements--in the form of government jobs--even though they were extremely unpopular. Then they pushed even more austerity measures through. Why? Because once your credit rating goes to junk bond status, you have really only the choices to either (a) bankrupt yourself--in a country, that takes the form of either just writing off the debt and refusing to pay or through hyperinflation by printing money (obviously Greece couldn't really choose the second option as they didn't "own" the Euro)--or (b) take whatever extreme measures your creditors demand--often austerity measures--to guarantee payment. Either way, economic collapse seems rather unlikely because (a) most businesses can still keep operating no matter how defunct the US government becomes and they're the driving force of the economy and (b) as much as that sort of failure of the US government would still have a lot of ripple effects through the economy, it's hard to believe that it would be any worse than the Great Depression which, as horrible as it was, is a survivable circumstance. Of course, another Great Depression is unlikely precisely because of all those social programs.
As for the former, your best bet is a very diverse portfolio. For the latter, well, the vast majority of people don't have to worry because the "grab your ankles" part generally applies to taxes on income--ie, it's the top 10% who are most likely to feel the pain if it comes to it*.
*And as bad as one might want to feel for them, I'd much rather be making $1 million/year where the top $750,000 are taxed at 90% and the bottom at $250,000 at 25% (leaving you with net $262,500/year) than to be making $50,000/year (leaving you with net $37,500/year); with the former, after only 10 years of work you could reti
The funny thing is, your comment just gave me a very clear idea. Microsoft really should have, instead of wasting all the time and energy into making Windows 8 and following the tablet crowd, tried to better integrate MCE as a core part of Windows and pushed developers for more 10 foot UIs--which Metro might have been good for coupled with kinetics for gesturing (emphasis on the might, since AFAIK, the issue is really MS's implementation, anyways). But, I'd guess that idea was put off because it might compete with the current/next XBox and it'd cut into the MCE specialty sales. Of course, if Windows 8/RT had really taken off, it'd inherently be competing with Windows Phone--just as Android and iOS span the gambit of portable handheld phone/entertainment devices; then again, considering MS's lack of success in the smartphone space, I don't think they'd see that as a failure to have to retire the Windows Phone line.
And as for competition with the XBox, as you pointed out, the PC is just a different beast. The advantages of single-spec, locked down architecture for a game console are the exact opposite advantages of a multi-spec, very open architecture of a PC. So, I'd say it's more a waste than anything. That's especially true given how people are much more willing to plop a lot of money down for a PC/all-in-one-media-center than a tablet, especially once you factor in things like the cost of a good size TV or the trend for ever cheaper tablets.
So, explain to me against exactly how it is the case that a variety of Linux distributions with very little authority or money can manage to run a central repository to handle things like updates, yet Microsoft under Windows is so beholden to 3rd parties to do the job for them?
In fact, I think the answer is obvious. Windows is dedicated towards a more open software architecture to the point that installation, updates, and removal under Windows is quite horrible and Microsoft has done little to begin to fix the problem. Of course, you'd say, Linux is even more open but only if you accept all the burdens of managing installation, updates, and removal yourself. Ie, Microsoft has simply not setup a central repository to manage the issues even though a central repository would resolve most the issues.
Now the question becomes, why hasn't Microsoft created such a repository? Well, for one, under the guise of freedom, Microsoft has pursued making update tools primarily for their own programs and generally focused on making sure their own house is in order to their own, preferential advantage. By the same token, 3rd parties are rather weary of leaving updating under Microsoft's capable hands because there's an obvious agenda at work at Microsoft which could readily be made detrimental to 3rd parties; there's enough threat that a separate 3rd party repository would inherently need to be maintained and it's somewhat doubtful Microsoft would join such an organization. Finally, there's no central profit motive for Microsoft to making Windows system more secure by making 3rd party tools more up to date--even presuming that'd have a real dent in malware cases; after all, Windows basically sells itself as *the* Desktop OS and Microsoft can always sling blame at other parties, no matter how much people intuitively still blame Windows and Microsoft for effectively creating such an acerbic ecosystem.
PS - No, commercial software that can't be readily redistributed doesn't answer it precisely because there's nothing preventing that software to be treated differently, as either part of some sort of online store or under a similar install setup that's done today (potentially with API hooks to readily support system-based update lookup/download/etc). Nor does old software explain it, as backwards compatibility hacks are all over Windows and the threat of maintaining old systems has not stopped them from revamping all sorts of subsystem substantially, even multiple times--just how many 2D acceleration architectures are in WIndows, again? But, like I said, it doesn't advantage Microsoft much because it does very little to encourage lock-in; but Microsoft Update does encourage Microsoft-product lock-in.
I think you have your answer to your own problems. In the future, make sure all contracts have "Terms of Service" in the title and make sure their signing pen has a cpu in it, hence they're using a CPU. Ergo, you too will have the power to lock people up for ToS violations.
No, he probably wasn't "strictly guilty"; he may well have been "technically guilty" under an absurd interpretation of the CFAA but by the same way almost everyone is "technically guilty" of jaywalking or conspiracy. You see, language, even used in writing laws, is often very ambiguous. The obvious intent of the CFAA was to protect against actual fraud and abuse through computers. And the harsh punishment of 35 years was intent upon the most extreme cases of that abuse. To the point, there's nothing in the CFAA that strictly matches what Swartz was doing but instead there was leeway room in the language that could allow prosecutors to try individuals upon technical language put in place in the act so that nearly strictly guilty cases could be prosecuted successfully.
You're right, to an extent, of course. But then legislators are in the same boat. They need to write laws that are broad enough to cover their intended crime yet specific enough not to be abused by, potentially well-meaning, prosecutors. They have to offer severe punishment for the most extreme abuse outlined, yet they have to try to spell out that it only applies in the extreme cases without prosecutors, again potentially well-meaning, contorting the language to apply such in what would reasonably not be extreme cases. Look no further than conspiracy laws to see a great example of the issue and the near intractability of the problem. To that end, this is precisely the reason why prosecutors are a main component of the justice system, for they can instill human judgment into potential cases.
Prosecutors are, by definition, charged with seeking justice. That inherently means a need for them to make judgments on who to seek punishment upon and what sort of sentence terms to seek. If they feel a crime is committed yet applicable laws offer no reasonable punishment, their hands are tied and they should not prosecute under the more severe law nor under another law with more reasonable punishment but inapplicable charges. Yes, the legislature is charged with fixing laws, making them just, and making them clear. But when they fail or simply do not act, it is not the job of the prosecutor to warp the language of the law; the ends do not justify the means.
Personally, I'd imagine there'd be a lot less focus on the prosecutors if they had (a) publicly called upon legislators to fix the law so they could reasonable prosecute cases, (b) publicly called for the CFAA to be heavily changed so it's much harder for less competent prosecutors to abuse suspects with the CFAA with unreasonable charges or punishments, and (c) to have not actually prosecuted the case but instead acknowledged that their hands were tied under the intent of the law and under a sense of justice.
You're right. University administrators are too interested in CYOA to actually do the right thing. They are assholes.
Oh, and if you were referring to the "terrorists" (as others have put it), well, no, they don't have the power to do jack squat, so they're clearly not the assholes who ruined things for everyone. It's the University administrators that cowered and changed policy. And it's not like gun hoaxes or denial of services are some magically new thing that warrants *any* change in policy--just like terrorists attacking planes or destroying buildings wasn't a new thing on 9/11. No, this is just cowardly kowtowing to--well--hypothetical parents and hypothetical interest groups. What part of "I am deeply and personally committed to safeguarding our community, protecting our campus and securing our systems." doesn't scream kiss-ass, double-talk?
The most secure systems in the world are the ones that are constantly under attack. They're the ones that have to actually combat real-world threats and not just all those hypothetical, isolated ones. Evolution itself is predicated on that very idea, that nature and life is a savage world in which there's a constant struggle all-over the place and extinction-level events have occurred repeatedly. To turn tail and thinking closing off their network will solve things... No, I don't think they believe that. But, it does suddenly give the IT department--and by extension the University administration--(a) the power to deny people on a whim and (b) the power to otherwise monitor activity that they would otherwise be completely unaware of--and that's a good sign that suddenly having monitoring activity will grant them to make non-issues issues predicated on their own beliefs.
In short, the ultimate goal of University should be to enrich the lives of their students, professors, etc by broadening their horizons. No part of IT department or administration micro-management really should enter into it--and sadly, I think it happens too much already with department heads in general treating their department as their personal fiefdom, so I can see where the administrators would get the idea. What's next? Random dorm room inspections?
The reason it starts off biased is precisely because entities don't have rights but people do. And while Congress and the Supreme Court have on various occasions shown an interest in curtailing those rights under often dubious standards, the fact that corporations have billions of dollars to spend trying to expand their "rights" often translates into what people fear most, that corporations have more say in what happens than real people do.
Which is more a byproduct of both company overreach, to avoid state or federal law, and federal government overreach, to allow them to regulate things like the lack of commerce as a form of interstate commerce. It stands to reason, then, that with such a mash up it becomes even more important to not pretend like corporations are people.
Not really. "The press" is already well covered under the First Amendment as an example of where government may not tread. And the point of financial donations aren't directly covered under the federal government since that's almost all done at the state level. In fact, states were meant to be primary guardians against corporation abuse precisely because as much as the federal government was bound to respect all speech, states were not.
I think you might be interested in reading The History of Corporations in the United States. You have to remember that a large issue at the foundation of the US was just how much the US government would federalist vs confederalist. As a result, a lot of big issues were put on to states to deal with with the idea that the US government would be something of a referee if state actions started to effect other states--hence the various language about resolving interstate commerce or other sorts of disputes. More the point, by placing the power of corporate charters in the hands of states, it was likely felt that, worst-case, a corporation would only have the power to usurp the power of one state vs all the states if left to the US government to charter. Of course, that's turned into a sort of rent seeking where lots of corporations setup shop officially in Delaware--just like in Ireland*, and sadly there's no simple fix to the point of interstate commerce if you can't tariff products from a usurped state.
So, I'd say the truth is closer to the founding fathers simply not being world-renowned economists and believing that enough compartmentalization and democracy would work through such issues. But, then you have massive sums of money from corporations and a third branch of government, the courts, that often seem too affixed to the letter of the law or the spirit of the law to suit the current establishment... So, I'm not sure there's any real simple way that the issue could have been addressed. Put another way, if corporations *had* been mentioned in the US Constitution, then i
So, how do you determine which people are legal? And on what basis do you only deport the non-"law abiding" illegal ones or really have that as a basis for anything except as the start of being able to tell if a person is illegal.
No more than I think the US should provide for you. There is a rather extreme absurdity in the idea of citizenship. It was at one time a descriptive term--to say you were a citizen of a town/city/country meant you lived there. Now, it's a prescriptive term--to say you are a citizen of a town/city/country means you're legally entitled to live there. Who should pay taxes should be linked to who lives in an area. Who derives benefits in an area should be those who live in an area. There's no real logical basis to think that being 1cm within designated borders should magically leave you to "expect the US to provide for [you]" nor should which vagina you happen to drop out of nor who happened to be the inseminator of your life really determined how much cash the rest of you should give you.
About the only real logical reason I can see to prescribe citizenship is to (1) provide a framework to limit what the government can do to fuck you over by making it clear that you live somewhere--but that really speaks of a limiting of scope instead of treating all people as equal and allows for "enemy combatant" and other selective relabelling/redistricting/whatever to justify abuse--, (2) to slow down immigration so the free flow of individuals doesn't create economic collapse because of the influx of immigrants--but that practice isn't practiced in-country and there's been plenty of examples where there's been just as ample reason to, say, slow down Easterners from moving to California in the post Civil War era--, or (3) to properly track people for income taxes, or similarly applied taxes, purposes--but then that falls upon government to put a short lease on businesses which clearly is the more fundamental problem in the regard, anyways.
"Driving while black" targets people who are presumed guilty of a crime, based on fun statistics that note the higher incarceration rate of male blacks, especially in "bad black neighborhoods"--feel free to note a lack of "bad white neighborhoods" with "driving while white". "Suspicion of brown-ness" is precisely the same presumption of guilty of a crime, based on the fun stats you suggest above. In both cases, there's clearly something wrong with presuming a person guilty and demanding they prove their innocence in some way or just generally harassing people because of your presumptions. And to add to the point, when it becomes clear that you need a "legal" reason to pull someone over and harass them for their ID, you just make up something like speeding regardless of whether they were or not. Unless they have ample evidence to the contrary and are well connected, its "[black/brown] [wo]man's word vs a cop", with potential insinuation of racism that likely will get a person no where, especially as it's
Guess what? I believe that heteroexuality is flat out wrong as well.
Oh wait, no I don't. In fact, I'm hard pressed to think of anyone who's suggested anything of the sort. By the same token, I don't think I've heard anyone say "homosexuality is a normal thing that's absolutely wonderful for everybody". Now, I have heard things like "homosexuality is a normal thing" and "[having] [your own sexual preference/desire] is a normal thing that's absolute wonderful for everybody". But, that has more to do with recognizing that sexual desire is very much an internal aspect of oneself and that society or government or whatever trying to force you to change is wrong. It also stems from the whole point that nature is full of homosexual/bi-sexual behavior, so in that way it's quite a normal thing.
Now, whether you want to argue that it's ethical or moral, that's a whole other point. But claiming that personal lifestyle choices are "damaging to the nation" seems incredibly absurd on its face unless you mean "damaging to the status quo of the nation". But, then, I don't think the current status quo of any nation is perfect and should be preserved blindly on its face. So, if being more tolerant of other people in their own personal lifestyle choices results in more tolerance to homosexuality, that's just how it is. It is not "damaging to the nation" to accept that you should butt outside of business that is not your own and has no effect on you except in the most fleeting sense that you inherently have to tolerate other people who do things you don't like more or have to explain the same to your children.
But that last part is pretty well the foundation of what is America in many ways. It's just that through time we've come to recognize more and more just what more can be reasonably tolerated in others.
While it may be a "failure of democracy", it wouldn't inherently be "the end of democracy". The former is a point where democracy for or against a point is thwarted. The latter is when "failure of democracy" is the norm. Failure of democracy is a necessary feature of a republic that wants something more than simple majority mob rule. A recognition of human rights is a big aspect of that.
Pursuant to that, is the fact that the Declaration of Independence was a statement about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", all of which are often threatened by the majority. That the American constitution effectively required a Bill of Rights because it was perceived how quickly representatives would bypass the unwritten assumption that one couldn't reinterpret the Constitution to grant whatever power Congress wanted for the day or the very fact that the Supreme Court effectively decided upon itself to judge the legality and enforceablility of laws heavily stems from this.
So, while Orson Scott Card could be right about "the end of democracy", I just don't inherently see it in your example or what is happening in the US. Marriage seems about as much a right as sex (or speech or guns or lots of things). And as much as government can certainly put caveats on age or consent (or time of day or loudness or training or whatever) to mold those things, it seems pretty clear that an outright ban goes well beyond the scope of anything that is the business of government to pursue or enforce, be it a tyranny or a democracy. It's one reason why the whole "end to democracy" seems more of a red herring than anything that sounds like a good rallying cry but really misses the core issue of whether government should be involved. It's also one reason why right-wing "social conservatives" are such hypocrites. :(
Right, it's a very true statement. There's a lot of duplication of effort produced by having a lot of pointless recompiles or needlessly deep library linking. While there's certainly no perfectly right solution--although I'll put a partial suggestion below--, Windows approach is very much the wrong solution, IMHO. I really don't know enough about Mac OS X on how they deal with the issue, except that Apple tends to just drop backwards compatibility on things every once in a while.
Nah, I don't think it's the sole reason for Linux usage not skyrocketing in adoption. Sure, commercial support, especially in games, would likely spur a lot more people who are hesitant to switch. But for most people, Windows is "good enough" and without any philosophical reason to switch, I don't think they'd go through the effort. This is especially true given how Wine is far from perfect and plenty of programs are unlikely to be ported to Linux ever--the company behind them are defunct.
Yeah, LSB prevented binary fragmentation in Linux just like POSIX prevented binary fragmentation in Unix. Oh, wait, no. Seriously, LSB has more to do with maintaining source compatibility and having convenient guidelines so most distros store a lot of stuff in vaguely the same locations. To actually have something equivalent to a non-fragmented Linux ecosystem, you'd need something more than a L[inux] S[tardard] B[ase] and something more like a L[inux] S[tandard] P[latform] which mandated a lot of libraries at certain versions associated at specific locations and it'd require at least quarterly updates including provisions for the same dll hell that is standard in Windows.
My not so humble suggestion would be to mandate the use of gettext on just about all strings, especially paths and libraries to allow distros to more readily override presumptions of binaries on where stuff should be and whatever. Such is far from a complete solution because, as I noted, you still have to mandate libraries to include in distros, which versions to include, etc*. But it'd be a much closer step to resolving the ridiculous mess currently used.
A small point, but I currently use Ubuntu and I wouldn't call myself a "non-linux geek". Nor do I really go out of my way to defend my distro of choice. :) Much like Windows users, I chose a distro and since it's "good enough", I've stuck with it. In the end, Linux is Linux, so it doesn't matter a lot to me. What does matter to me is that I can almost always get the source code for just about anything on my system if I really want to. And if I'm really stubborn about it, I can run my own custom code even after Ubuntu decides to move on to something else.
It's that long-term point that's really my main reason for sticking with Linux. Long-term migration with Linux seems a lot more reasonable in a lot of ways because as much as a hassle as it is, it's still better than potentially no migration.
*And this is one major reason why I don't even push my suggestion or try to implement it. There's no way I'm willing to try to create a LSP or entice distros to follow it. It's a lot of effort with a lot of headaches involved, especially when it comes to unit testing a lot of binaries to make sure they still run. Well, that, and as much as LSB is decried and in many way
DRM isn't about preventing you from making copies. It's about controlling use of a work, be it to prevent you from using copies or even from using the original be it all or or for a limited times or certain hours of the day or a certain location or whatever, without first removing the DRM; in essence, it's a digital monitor of your use of a "protected work". Because of how it functions, it has to give you the key to the lock it creates, so it functionally is rather analogous to a "Do no remove" tag with federal penalties. To that end, sure you can duplicate the chair exactly, but if you use the chair once, all duplicates only have 7 uses. Use one of those, all its progeny only have 6 uses. In essence, it's an attempt to recreate the analog bleed down effect from copying--admittedly, with use being the actual bleeder--or Monsanto's terminator genes.
So as long as you get a clean copy of the 8 use chair, you can indefinitely clone and use it without breaking the DRM. But that's obvious a horrible waste of resources when it's a perfectly good chair. Of course, that's the core lesson. DRM is all about making the situation worse for all those involved. And for what end? So the original creator of the chair has "rights management" over its use.
You can argue all you want how it has to be physical to use so it's different--a thing I question a lot with 3D printing and copyrightable specs becoming big--, but that seems to be more an issue of tedium and semantics. The same could be also done in an online game with a digital chair. Making it physical is merely to make the point physically clear. And calling it DRM is because it's the close analogy available given that nothing as absurd as DRM exists inherently to reality which is precisely why it had to be enacted into law to exist.
To that end, could see legal enforcement of DRM as a reasonable compromise in society because of a desire by society for more copyrighted works. To me, DRM is simply too absurd to be reasonable as any sort of a compromise and a "DRM" chair illustrates the point. While I'm certainly sure there are places where it could be of use-- rentals come to mind--, it would seem to me but a poor excuse for forcing such notions on a rather limitless supply of work available through digital copying--ie, rentals only make sense when there's something "physical" to rent and hence there's a need to return for which a copy and sharing removes that need.
In short, DRM seems more in line to prop up industry that is not well suited towards a future where that industry no longer makes sense. Finding out just how society should actually face the inherent changes in a digital world would be a more worthwhile venture, and I honestly think DRM is a great example of sending great minds to waste their effort on such a thing instead of leading towards the invariable future. Of course, those who have seized the future are leading the way anyways, so such is more a moot point of wasted resources.
Not just satellite view per se. Consider that just about every type of weather data gathering device will be blocked as well since most are likely to capture an image of in-property doppler shift of rain drops or a radar map of fog/cloud cover or a temperature map of potentially radiating heat*. Of course, it's entirely absurd that the requirement whether a vehicle is unmanned or not since I'm pretty sure if the whole idea is that the images are a violation in themselves that having a living witness really changes things. But, then, as the summary states, it has more to do with combating those damn hippies and their damn legal evidence gathering to capture crooked companies. Those poor, poor crooked companies.
*It's interesting, actually, because the point reminds me of police using thermal vision equipment to detect heat lamps as evidence to get a warrant to bust pot growers. That was stricken down as unconstitutional because it used uncommon equipment--a silly argument--and saw things that a personally reasonably thought would be private--a more solid argument, I think. Of course, weather satellites don't seem to do anything close to the sort of detail to detect such things inside public residences. But, then, all the court ruling did was affirm what was or was not admissible evidence. Now, if the legislator had tried to take that angle, I'd probably be more appreciative. The catch-22, at least from their perspective, is how much it'd just as well limit things like, oh, any sort of police airplane/helicopter use to track suspects or gather evidence. And that doesn't even get into all the potentially planned police use of drones to take over the mentioned police airplane/helicopter use of today. Then again, I'd imagine police would just be treated above the law in this case, though oddly not enough to be "damn hippies" themselves and track down said crooked companies so private citizens wouldn't have to bother.