Think of it as a reminder to the Congress that we know what the Executive is up to, and that we do not approve of such illegal acts and the legalization thereof.
Congress!?!?
Seriously?
They don't need any reminders.
They've pretty effectively been willingly bypassed almost completely by Obama and the Executive branch via Executive Order, and they're busy finding other ways to hand what remains of the legislative reins to the Executive branch as fast as they can.
They want to unburden themselves from all that useless and wasteful "representing the People" stuff, and get back to what's important...finding more ways to Hoover up cash on the taxpayer's dime.
..That they're building that huge Federal data center in Colorado just to store party photos from the GSA conferences or the Secret Service whore-a-thons, did you?
That's why I've always kept my plans to overthrow the government using my backdoors into the NSA's and White House's computer systems completely off the grid...
While you're at it you can pledge to buy your clothes at thrift stores and eat out of dumpsters.
I *DO* buy many of my everyday clothes (obviously not underwear or other such personal clothing items, or "dress" clothes like suits/ties) at thrift/second-hand stores, and I take what would go in that dumpster (my organic garbage) and compost it and use it to grow food.
As an extra, I also collect spent brass casings and shells and reload them for my firearms. I don't hear ammo makers whining over "lost sales". They make money selling reloading supplies & equipment. Maybe the game companies should take a look at that business model.
block all music that not release under cc-sa/cc-0 conditions
that would block all established music and allow independent musicians to release their content It truly the only way you could block all infringement.
Logically, legally, and morally one would think this a good idea.
However, it fails when you have a system that allows audio of wild birds singing in a forest to be blocked/removed because of false claims of copyright infringement. Add things like SoundExchange (US version of GEMA? Or would that be RIAA? Or is GEMA SoundExchange+German RIAA?) that takes a cut from any & all music regardless of the artist's desires (they offer a cut to the artists...they just have to join and strengthen the organization!), and that means such a system is impractical at best.
Jeez Louise, it's a wonder there hasn't been a case filed against someone walking down the street whistling a tune.
Yet.
If OWS wants something to protest against that will make them popular, they should be camping outside all these copyright organization's front doors and harassing *them*, instead of pissing off people trying to get to work and take their kids to school.
I'm not entirely sure what the US Dept. of Education does wrong...
The DoE (along with the teacher's unions) is/are largely responsible for the success and high standards of the US public education system. (Do I really need to add a 'sarc' tag here?)
But the end result is still that you need a government (both at more empowered local levels and at higher levels) that represents the people. The US is currently in a deadlock that prevents that.
Agreed. (there I go again!)
Once you remove much of the power that the Federal government has seized over the last ~100 years and return it to the States and the people while stripping away the Federal deadwood that hides many of their shenanigans, much of the corruption will disappear because there's no reason to pay off or influence a politician that doesn't have the power to accomplish your goals, and especially when such activities are going to be exposed and visible with far fewer layers and branches of government bureaucracy to hide their corruption behind.
Even so, if you want freedom, you shouldn't just whitle down the government. That would leave the corporations unchecked and in a position to take more control.
Smaller government =/= no government.
Dismantling the TSA or the Dept. of Education does not change SEC rules or Federal laws against illegal business & investment practices. If anything, reducing the size and eliminating the parts of the government that don't directly perform a basic and vital national function puts the people and parts of the government that's left (like the SEC and DoJ) in the spotlight with fewer distractions to draw attention away from illegal/corrupt practices and fewer chances to invoke a credible "plausible deniability" strategy to escape consequences for bad/corrupt/illegal/un-Constitutional actions and policies. It also leaves more money in the budget for investigators and investigations to actually enforce the laws and regulations as opposed to the lax and politically-selective enforcement we see these days.
The other thing that happens with a government like the US that's grown too large is "regulatory/legislative capture". You can see the kind of damage that does by simply looking at the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and what was going on between the regulators and the companies they were charged to regulate.
The key is to distribute power as far down the chain from central government to state/local government as is practical for each instance of government power/control and keep as much as practically possible local as one can. The closer the power is to the populace it governs, the more accountable to the population and the more representative of their will it is.
It's always the central government that ends up in control of tyrannies because that's the levers to control the whole nation from one point of power. Therefor, the less power the central government has to begin with, the less tempting of a target for corruption it is to outside powers like large corporations and cabals, and the longer it will take and the harder it will be to reach intolerable levels of graft, tyranny, & corruption.
It is the nature of all government to grow and become more controlling, tyrannical, and intolerable, therefor one must do everything practical to create and maintain the smallest central government practically possible if one desires to delay as long as possible the time when government becomes too large, too tyrannical, and too corrupt, and domestic revolution/overthrow by the nation's citizens becomes the only option. That rarely turns out well.
junkscience.com is run by an industry shill. Not a credible source, IMO.
Facts have no bias nor agenda, regardless of the source. If the facts are credibly cited, what matters who posts them? Filtering sources of facts based on ideology is a bias in and of itself and leaves one woefully under- and misinformed.
Traditional tin/lead rosin-core electronics solder is getting harder and harder to find, and prices are climbing. I agree, it's still pretty widely available through retail outfits like Radio Shack and similar in the US at full retail price, but I buy my electronics parts & supplies through wholesale distribution houses that sell exclusively to commercial businesses like factories, service shops, etc.
I'm also in the cottage electronics manufacturer business (synth modules) and I have a hard time believing that the places you shop don't stock 60/40. I mostly use 63/37, but Kester still makes 60/40 as well. It's still in wide distribution. All-Spec, Digikey, Mouser, Newark, etc. all carry it. If you're repairing tube amps, you could probably buy a lifetime supply for a few hundred dollars, if you're really worried about supplies going away in the future.
.
I design and build custom hand-wired tube guitar amps as well as service/repair and restore vintage amps. The problem is not that tin/lead solder is unavailable, it's that I have to keep increasing the number of suppliers that I have to deal with to get the same parts & supplies (including tin/lead solder) that I once could get from one source. Digi-Key, Mouser, etc don't carry vacuum tubes. Many vacuum-tube suppliers don't carry solder. Neither carries guitar-amp specific hardware. It's that I end up having to deal with more and more suppliers and jump through more and more hoops to get the things I once got from one source with minimal time, effort, and expense involved that is the issue. Time, expense, and effort that doesn't go towards improving my products and services to better meet my customer's needs.
I have stocked up on tin/lead solder. That doesn't mean I'm comfortable with the direction things are going.
Strat
PS: Just wanted to say that although we may disagree on many things, that I respect that you've approached this discussion without the usual vitriol seen on/. It's quite enjoyable and refreshing. I wish more who posted here followed your example. Bravo!:)
Vote for a government that is your friend. That's what you need to be doing.
[Larry the Cable Guy] Well, there's yer doggone problem, right there! [/Larry the Cable Guy]
There is NO SUCH THING as ANY government that is "your friend" no matter how it is structured or who is in it. Government is, AT BEST, a necessary evil. Government is nothing more nor less than force. Like fire, you only use just enough to get the job done, keep it tightly controlled and limited to prevent it's growth & spread, and to prevent it consuming all the surrounding resources (freedom, choice, and wealth, in the case of government, instead of forests/cities/homes with fire).
You also keep a means to kill it in it's tracks handy in case it gets out of control, and you do not hesitate to use it if needed.
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence...it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. - George Washington
The essence of government is power, and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse. - James Madison
The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. - Thomas Jefferson
What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the Spirit of Resistance. - Thomas Jefferson
That government is best which governs least. - Thomas Paine
Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. - John Adams
Americans need to re-commit themselves as a society to those principles that gave us freedom and liberty to start with. Such principles never change, and if forgotten, guarantee that loss of freedom & liberty will quickly follow. We see it playing out in the news every day.
I'm not as up on the DDT thing, but the fluorocarbon ban seems like a clear win to me. It was based on sound science, and the result matched the prediction fairly closely.
I'm also not a fan of the European RoHS laws (which I assume is what you're talking about when you say "eutectic solder".) This was based on very sketchy science, and the lead-free stuff is much harder to work with. But, unless you're in Europe, 60/40 is still for sale everywhere, as is 63/37.
Traditional tin/lead rosin-core electronics solder is getting harder and harder to find, and prices are climbing. I agree, it's still pretty widely available through retail outfits like Radio Shack and similar in the US at full retail price, but I buy my electronics parts & supplies through wholesale distribution houses that sell exclusively to commercial businesses like factories, service shops, etc.
Fewer and fewer commercial wholesale distributors are carrying tin/lead solder because most OEMs and other producers of electronics equipment in the US and abroad are, or are becoming, RoHS-compliant because so much trade is international, so they design equipment to meet both EU and US regulations.
Once demand drops below a certain level, many wholesale distributors will drop a product from their line-card like tin/lead solder or even vacuum tubes, for that matter. Where at one time I only had to deal with one distributor and shipping/invoicing/payment system, now I have to find, set up an account with, and learn the invoicing/shipping/payment system ropes of, one distributor for solder and another for my vacuum tubes, and yet another for other parts & tech supplies. Every so often, I've had to rinse and repeat to find another source for solder or vacuum tubes, or sometimes both.
One of the problem with this whole thing is that it only plays out over decades. The decisions made today will not reach their endgame for a generation or two. It seems to me that we're the proverbial frog being boiled by starting out in cold water. The temperature is rising slowly enough that we don't take action.
It is my firm belief, having been alive for over 5 decades to witness what Mankind, especially Americans, are capable of when challenged, that this slow-moving change will stimulate the technological advances needed to largely mitigate any climate change effects and relatively-smoothly adjust & adapt without the need for a sudden drastic reduction in living standards and levels of industrial development.
Just out of curiosity, what was your position on banning fluorocarbons as aerosol propellants?
The same as it is regarding other related environmental-related bans like DDT and the one that galls me and affects me most, the switch from standard 60/40 tin/lead solder to eutectic solder for electronics. The DDT ban has cost million of lives lost to malaria which was on the verge of being eliminated as a significant cause of death, was unnecessary, and was driven by bad science and politics just as with AGW.
The eutectic solder sucks big wads. It also poses a problem for me in restoring old vacuum-tube guitar amplifiers, as mixing the two doesn't work, and regular tin/lead solder is getting harder to find and becoming ever-more expensive.
That solution doesn't call for entire populations to be locked into their current 3rd-world levels of development without the ability to raise their standards of living
Have you really stopped to think about what happens as China/India/Africa become car cultures with today's technology? (particularly car cultures without strict pollution standards) What happens as they continue to build coal power plants?
To single out China, as of 2008 they had 37 cars per thousand people. wiki reference The US has 808 cars per thousand. If China got to the same point it would add more than a billion cars to the planet.
I don't think that there's ever been such a huge population that has been modernizing quite as fast a China. It's really quite remarkable. If it was happening on another planet, I would be watching in fascination. As it is, I'm watching with trepidation.
This is exactly what I was talking about in the snippet of my post that you quoted. In order for any steps we take to reduce CO2 to make any difference, it will require attempting to prevent China/India/Africa from developing their industrial base and even reverse some of their current industrial development. This is just fantasy, as there's no way short of invasion (not likely) or nuclear war (much more likely) to convince these nations to take those sorts of actions.
Those in power who are pushing the AGW agenda are well-aware of this. They simply see this as an opportunity to use AGW as the next "for the children!" excuse to take more wealth from people (taxing corporations just passes taxes to people) and to expand government size and scope while reducing individual freedom & choice in favor of government mandates and control.
I'm no "denialist". Global average temps are likely trending upwards. Heck, man may even be contributing in a significant way to a natural trend. If they could show me credible evidence I'd be at the front carrying the AGW flag! But, we don't yet have the data or understanding of global climate systems to know that with any certainty, and therefor we also don't have the data or understanding to start tossing what may be monkey-wrenches into our only home's climate system or it may all be simply wasted effort, particularly as these actions come at great cost in terms of wealth, standards of living and quality of life, and human suffering and lives lost.
Even if it's not a totally man made problem, if actions man can take can slow it down a little, should't they be attempted? Is your solution to do nothing and let the future sort itself out?
My solution is to do what Man has always done, use his technology to mitigate any very slow and gradual effects and adapt, while taking common-sense steps to limit pollution and conserve resources without massive wealth-redistribution or crippling national economies.
That solution doesn't call for entire populations to be locked into their current 3rd-world levels of development without the ability to raise their standards of living, or call for 1st-world populations to dramatically lower their standard of living, nor does it require widespread food & energy shortages and artificially-high energy prices that affect the poorest the most and will cause widespread starvation & death.
Heck, my solution may even lead to a worldwide economic and industrial boom, increase the global food supplies and reduce hunger, and put huge numbers to work while raising living standards among the poorest populations.
Even if we were to somehow totally remove all humans and human climate impacts going forward from the planet today, I haven't seen any studies that would indicate that the global average temperature rise would slow by even a whole degree over the next century.
Therefor I'll stick with my solution, TYVM. My solution lets me sleep at night knowing I'm not partially to blame for actions and policies that may well be condemning large masses of people to suffering, starvation, & death, while condemning others to remain stuck in 2nd- and 3rd-world living conditions and levels of development *while not actually solving the problem*.
AGW evangelists are asking the entire planet to pay dearly in terms of human suffering in order to play Russian roulette with a pistol that has an unknown number of rounds in the cylinder, with only politically-motivated assurances that statistically there shouldn't be a "bang" when they'd have us pull the trigger.
As are AGW deniers. In this case, I'd rather place my bet with the lot that are trying to do something to slow down warming than the lot who say it's not our fault, and there's nothing that can be done about it.
Considering that taking the actions the AGW evangelists would have us take will cost many human lives, I put to you the same question I put to another poster above:
Are you ready to let yourself and your loved ones starve and freeze to death first if you're so sure? Or is it a different matter when it's you and yours including your children paying the price you demand from others? How far would you go in reducing your family's and your own standard of living and ability to feed yourselves and keep yourselves from freezing in winter?
So far, none of those who are clamoring for actions based on AGW that would condemn multitudes of people to death and bare-subsistence have shown themselves willing to condemn themselves first. It's always "those people over there need to suffer".
should we go dicking with things we don't have complete knowledge and control over.
If not, we should not bother doing anything. We have no complete knowledge and control over anything.
When talking about taking actions that will affect every living thing on the entire planet, including possibly causing entire species (including humans), to go extinct if you get it wrong, maybe even destroying all life on the planet (possibly excepting a few hardy extreme-environment bacterial/virus-type, long-term-hibernation-capable organisms), you'd better be DAMNED SURE, and you'd better be ready to *prove it beyond a doubt* to the majority of the planet's population's satisfaction.
AGW evangelists are asking the entire planet to pay dearly in terms of human suffering in order to play Russian roulette with a pistol that has an unknown number of rounds in the cylinder, with only politically-motivated assurances that statistically there shouldn't be a "bang" when they'd have us pull the trigger.
All the while, they're screaming; "Didi mao! Didi mao!" instead of answering questions, and then they get all butt-hurt that so many people are telling them to bugger-off.
Nice attempt, but climate is not a binary, 50/50, either/or statistical problem.
No, but it is a statistical problem, which is very different from weather, which is not.
I'll simply quote what some posting farther down said quite well.
But the climate is not a coin toss. Just because statistics maps well to coin tosses does not mean it maps well to climate change and climate predictions. Climate models cannot be trusted or correct, and I am a physics (but admittedly not climate) based software modeler (degrees in CS and Physics and 30 years experience) so I know what I'm talking about. They cannot be tested and confirmed due to the long time spans. I need to see some accurate testing of the climate models before I build any confidence in them. Run the models at a much higher resolution for a shorter period of time (a year or two), and if they can accurately predict the average monthly global temperature, then I might start to listen to what they have to say.
As I posted above, the goals appear to be more about geopolitics and ideology than any actual science, as the actual science is getting short-shrift in favor of Alinsky-style attacks against anyone voicing criticism or asking too many questions, as well as cherry-picking data and models that verify the starting conclusions that AGW is occurring and that humans have the knowledge and understanding to fix it if only those in the industrialized, 1st-world West abandon much of the industrialization that supports a 1st-world level of lifestyle and those in the 2nd- and 3rd-world would only stop all development and remain struggling to survive and halt seeking raise the standard of living for their people.
And don't forget, the things the AGW evangelists are pushing will also necessitate heavy government control over most all aspects of global society including even national domestic laws with some form of global-governance body, incredibly high levels of individual taxation, reduced/costlier food supplies, and sacrificing individual liberty and even national sovereignty. We can even see a hint of the tactics to accomplish a global legal framework for global control of national domestic laws with the recent push for the secretive ACTA treaty.
Oh please. The USA is one of the richest nations in the world.
It was in 1929 as well. Nothing is forever, especially not going into ever-more debt without a hope of paying it back. The gravy train always ends, and there are always people just like you caught completely unawares despite the writing on the wall, and even denying it's occurring in the middle of the collapse despite watching the figurative bankers take suicide dives off of buildings, seeing the factories boarded up, and having to walk around the long soup lines. None so blind, and all that.
Look to Greece, as that's the future if things don't radically change, and quickly. It may already be too late for the US. To voluntarily cripple our economy and our ability to create wealth in an effort to appease AGW evangelists under these conditions is utter idiocy and would be solid qualification for a Darwin Award.
As far as I'm concerned, until our weather man can accurately predict at least 5 days out
You can't even predict the outcome of a single coin toss, yet you have the gall to claim that out of a thousand coin tosses, about 500 will come up tails? You simply can't know that!
Nice attempt, but climate is not a binary, 50/50, either/or statistical problem. There are nearly infinite variables involved, and many important variables we aren't even aware of yet, and many that we are aware of, we haven't been able to sufficiently predict with enough accuracy and certainty to condemn vast numbers of people to starvation, poverty, and death based on them.
Unless, of course, the goals are actually more geopolitical/ideological than scientific, then it doesn't matter if it's accurate at all as long as enough people can be convinced to go along and people who question it are isolated, ridiculed, and personally attacked & destroyed. That "attacked and ridiculed" bit we see here all the time on Slashdot whenever AGW comes up and someone argues against the/. pro-AGW group-think.
Why is it that the USA can seemingly find enough money for a recent war in the Middle East, or a recent war out in Asia, or even spending billions and billions on a new security agency, but spending a similar amount of money on something different would cause "certain economic collapse and widespread death, starvation & suffering".
Because first they are not remotely equivalent sums. Second, that spending was just as unwise, and is having disastrous effects that have helped to put the US in it's current economic mess (along with unbridled domestic borrowing and spending on bread-and-circuses meant to assure election/re-election of the "right" politicians) and does not make a case for doubling-down on stupid.
2.) should we go dicking with things we don't have complete knowledge and control over...)
What, so digging up billions of tons of hydrocarbons and releasing them into the atmosphere isn't dicking around with things we don't have complete knowledge and control over?
Yeah, but billions of people's very lives depend on those hydrocarbons to produce food and warmth. Or do you favor the Stalinist method of targeted famines? If so, will you volunteer to starve and freeze yourself and your family to death first as an example?
I didn't think so.
So, why do you think it's OK to demand others starve and freeze to death if you're not willing to?
What we need to solve this is a ban on U.S. and European companies building coal-based plants in other countriesâ"make it as hard as possible for developing nations to get their start using coal and as easy as possible for them to get their start using more modern power production.
So you're suggesting that the US and EU collude to prevent other countries from advancing beyond an agrarian society unless they make themselves dependent on technology from another country that doesn't have their and their people's best interests at heart?
Well, congratulations. We won't have to wait around for a possible, theoretical, climate disaster. Don't forget that China and India both have nuclear bombs and missiles. That will start WW3, and then everybody will be screwed.
Great plan. I don't recall seeing any climate problems in Fallout 3.
I agree, failing to protect our future from death is far less important than profits now.
No, you got it wrong.
What he's saying is that with the US economy in the state it's in now, it's a choice of certain economic collapse and widespread death, starvation, & suffering for a near-certainty now in order to *maybe* prevent/delay something that may well be a totally natural phenomenon and may or may not be catastrophic decades down the line, or surviving now, and maybe having a problem later...a problem that depends on IF all the politically-motivated AGW furor and all the flawed climate models and debunked "hockey sticks" actually turn out NOT to be a political ploy to cover a move for global wealth-redistribution and a scam to skim wealth off of carbon-trading, none of which actually fixes anything supposedly broken with the climate, they just move money from one set of pockets to another.
It is sad that the current generation is so self absorbed that they cannot think of anything beyond the dollars they have to spend to keep the US great.
Sorry to say, but they ain't got lots of spare dollars anymore. China is the biggest manufacturing country now - maybe they should take a turn.
There's no real reason NASA has to do all the work for humanity. OK, so the ESA has a few nice contributions, but not in relation to their GDP. And they don't even waste all their money on an absurd military.
I wouldn't count on China to share much of any advances they make with their space program with the rest of the world. Anything truly worthwhile that gives China an advantage will be kept by China and not freely shared like NASA or the ESA does with the knowledge and data they gather from space exploration.
If you think the US is a world bully, wait until China becomes the main and/or sole remaining superpower. As the saying goes, "you ain't seen nothin' yet!". Judging from what they have shown themselves willing to do to their own people with hardly a second thought, I don't see good things coming for the planet with China being the only or most-powerful superpower.
The US has borrowed itself nearly into collapse, as politicians use borrowed money to finance their bread and circuses to assure election/re-election and make the population dependent on government largesse, thus bringing them under ever-increasing levels of government control.
The US government has, since the cold war has ended, slowly reduced space exploration's priority for government spending in favor of domestic entitlement programs to further government dependence and to finance increases in the size of government to manage all the entitlement programs and to further regulate, imprison, and intrusively monitor the population into eventual total subservience to the government.
In order for the US space program to receive the kind of priority and levels of funding seen in the '60s, either there needs to be another "cold war" and space-race, or a successful US domestic rebellion and the current government overthrown for one that doesn't view the US Constitution as so much toilet paper and actually represents the people that elect them.
I fear we may soon find we're living out that ancient Chinese curse; "May you live in interesting times".
Well, that would be up to the networks to prove in a court of law, and then make a link to the rebroadcasting rules/laws that will stand up in court.
If the court determines Aereo is in violation of rebroadcasting rules/regulations/laws despite "singlecasting", that could spell trouble for SlingBox and it's users. Which, of course, the networks and content providers would love. That's quite a legal hurdle to overcome, however, IMHO. Of course, IANAL and all that other disclaimer junk.
The thing is, even a Cable Company needs permission to pick up a local station and rebroadcast it.
There's where the problem is.
There's that pesky first syllable in the word "broadcast" that defines it to mean "cast broadly", which is almost the exact opposite of what Aereo is doing.
The networks want to call this "rebroadcasting" when it's actually "singlecasting" from an antenna that is the recipients property (rented property is considered legally to be "owned" by the person renting it, in the sense that a TV from Rent-A-Center that's paid up sitting in your living room is "yours" if someone steals it, or the house you rent is "yours" for the purposes of trespass, burglary, etc). It would be much like them claiming that it's illegal to watch their OTA broadcasts if you receive them through an antenna on your roof that you rented and did not buy outright.
Then why do they keep voting the same idiots over and over again ?
Because politicians in the US learned long ago how to use propaganda tactics and social engineering to keep the population divided, distracted, dependent, poor, angry, and envious, while also assuming federal control of and dumbing-down the public education system so as to leave the population largely without the ability to think critically or with a proper knowledge of un-re-written history, which combined, has the effect of leaving the population open to populist, emotional issues used ultimately to assure election and re-election of the "right" politicians, and passage of laws/Acts/regulations to expand government power and control while removing individual freedom a piece at a time.
Tube distortion isn't lost in a later A/D/A. The harmonics are quite well and alive. Bad A/D is its own problem, but studio quality A/D at high frequencies and bit depths will preserve it much better than tape will. Do you think that the Marshall sound suddenly reverts back to clean when people play it back from a CD?
The "feed it through a deck later" isn't about tube distortion. That's about the "tape compression" sound that drummers and some guitarists love. Why do you think you can't get it by feeding a good digital recording into a deck and then playing it back?
ANY kind of distortion can always be applied later if you have a clean recording, and 24/96 or 24/192 is a much cleaner recording than you'll ever get in the analog world.
But they don't *sound* the same for all their digital accuracy. That's the problem with these discussions. It's all subjective and dependent on how individuals hear things.
I used to think much as you did. "What does it matter if the tape compression (or distortion) is added afterwards?"...but for some reason, it *does* matter and *does* make a difference. I've learned this through decades of experience and from some of the very best professional recording and production engineers in the business.
I'm not trying to convince anyone to change what sounds best for them. Again, that's subjective. I'm just saying that other opinions are just as valid, and that it's up to the individual to choose for themselves what sounds best to them. It's like other things in music, like what is the "best" sounding guitar or pickup, or what is the "best" sounding loudspeaker. There is no absolute "right" answer.
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Think of it as a reminder to the Congress that we know what the Executive is up to, and that we do not approve of such illegal acts and the legalization thereof.
Congress!?!?
Seriously?
They don't need any reminders.
They've pretty effectively been willingly bypassed almost completely by Obama and the Executive branch via Executive Order, and they're busy finding other ways to hand what remains of the legislative reins to the Executive branch as fast as they can.
They want to unburden themselves from all that useless and wasteful "representing the People" stuff, and get back to what's important...finding more ways to Hoover up cash on the taxpayer's dime.
Strat
..That they're building that huge Federal data center in Colorado just to store party photos from the GSA conferences or the Secret Service whore-a-thons, did you?
That's why I've always kept my plans to overthrow the government using my backdoors into the NSA's and White House's computer systems completely off the grid...
Oops!
Hi boys! :)
Strat
While you're at it you can pledge to buy your clothes at thrift stores and eat out of dumpsters.
I *DO* buy many of my everyday clothes (obviously not underwear or other such personal clothing items, or "dress" clothes like suits/ties) at thrift/second-hand stores, and I take what would go in that dumpster (my organic garbage) and compost it and use it to grow food.
As an extra, I also collect spent brass casings and shells and reload them for my firearms. I don't hear ammo makers whining over "lost sales". They make money selling reloading supplies & equipment. Maybe the game companies should take a look at that business model.
I also never buy new games.
What was your point, again?
Strat
block all music that not release under cc-sa/cc-0 conditions
that would block all established music and allow independent musicians to release their content
It truly the only way you could block all infringement.
Logically, legally, and morally one would think this a good idea.
However, it fails when you have a system that allows audio of wild birds singing in a forest to be blocked/removed because of false claims of copyright infringement. Add things like SoundExchange (US version of GEMA? Or would that be RIAA? Or is GEMA SoundExchange+German RIAA?) that takes a cut from any & all music regardless of the artist's desires (they offer a cut to the artists...they just have to join and strengthen the organization!), and that means such a system is impractical at best.
Jeez Louise, it's a wonder there hasn't been a case filed against someone walking down the street whistling a tune.
Yet.
If OWS wants something to protest against that will make them popular, they should be camping outside all these copyright organization's front doors and harassing *them*, instead of pissing off people trying to get to work and take their kids to school.
Strat
I think we agree.
Agreed! :)
I'm not entirely sure what the US Dept. of Education does wrong...
The DoE (along with the teacher's unions) is/are largely responsible for the success and high standards of the US public education system. (Do I really need to add a 'sarc' tag here?)
But the end result is still that you need a government (both at more empowered local levels and at higher levels) that represents the people. The US is currently in a deadlock that prevents that.
Agreed. (there I go again!)
Once you remove much of the power that the Federal government has seized over the last ~100 years and return it to the States and the people while stripping away the Federal deadwood that hides many of their shenanigans, much of the corruption will disappear because there's no reason to pay off or influence a politician that doesn't have the power to accomplish your goals, and especially when such activities are going to be exposed and visible with far fewer layers and branches of government bureaucracy to hide their corruption behind.
Strat
Even so, if you want freedom, you shouldn't just whitle down the government. That would leave the corporations unchecked and in a position to take more control.
Smaller government =/= no government.
Dismantling the TSA or the Dept. of Education does not change SEC rules or Federal laws against illegal business & investment practices. If anything, reducing the size and eliminating the parts of the government that don't directly perform a basic and vital national function puts the people and parts of the government that's left (like the SEC and DoJ) in the spotlight with fewer distractions to draw attention away from illegal/corrupt practices and fewer chances to invoke a credible "plausible deniability" strategy to escape consequences for bad/corrupt/illegal/un-Constitutional actions and policies. It also leaves more money in the budget for investigators and investigations to actually enforce the laws and regulations as opposed to the lax and politically-selective enforcement we see these days.
The other thing that happens with a government like the US that's grown too large is "regulatory/legislative capture". You can see the kind of damage that does by simply looking at the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and what was going on between the regulators and the companies they were charged to regulate.
The key is to distribute power as far down the chain from central government to state/local government as is practical for each instance of government power/control and keep as much as practically possible local as one can. The closer the power is to the populace it governs, the more accountable to the population and the more representative of their will it is.
It's always the central government that ends up in control of tyrannies because that's the levers to control the whole nation from one point of power. Therefor, the less power the central government has to begin with, the less tempting of a target for corruption it is to outside powers like large corporations and cabals, and the longer it will take and the harder it will be to reach intolerable levels of graft, tyranny, & corruption.
It is the nature of all government to grow and become more controlling, tyrannical, and intolerable, therefor one must do everything practical to create and maintain the smallest central government practically possible if one desires to delay as long as possible the time when government becomes too large, too tyrannical, and too corrupt, and domestic revolution/overthrow by the nation's citizens becomes the only option. That rarely turns out well.
Strat
Facts have no bias nor agenda, regardless of the source. If the facts are credibly cited, what matters who posts them? Filtering sources of facts based on ideology is a bias in and of itself and leaves one woefully under- and misinformed.
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I design and build custom hand-wired tube guitar amps as well as service/repair and restore vintage amps. The problem is not that tin/lead solder is unavailable, it's that I have to keep increasing the number of suppliers that I have to deal with to get the same parts & supplies (including tin/lead solder) that I once could get from one source. Digi-Key, Mouser, etc don't carry vacuum tubes. Many vacuum-tube suppliers don't carry solder. Neither carries guitar-amp specific hardware. It's that I end up having to deal with more and more suppliers and jump through more and more hoops to get the things I once got from one source with minimal time, effort, and expense involved that is the issue. Time, expense, and effort that doesn't go towards improving my products and services to better meet my customer's needs.
I have stocked up on tin/lead solder. That doesn't mean I'm comfortable with the direction things are going.
Strat
PS: Just wanted to say that although we may disagree on many things, that I respect that you've approached this discussion without the usual vitriol seen on /. It's quite enjoyable and refreshing. I wish more who posted here followed your example. Bravo! :)
Vote for a government that is your friend. That's what you need to be doing.
[Larry the Cable Guy] Well, there's yer doggone problem, right there! [/Larry the Cable Guy]
There is NO SUCH THING as ANY government that is "your friend" no matter how it is structured or who is in it. Government is, AT BEST, a necessary evil. Government is nothing more nor less than force. Like fire, you only use just enough to get the job done, keep it tightly controlled and limited to prevent it's growth & spread, and to prevent it consuming all the surrounding resources (freedom, choice, and wealth, in the case of government, instead of forests/cities/homes with fire).
You also keep a means to kill it in it's tracks handy in case it gets out of control, and you do not hesitate to use it if needed.
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence...it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. - George Washington
The essence of government is power, and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse. - James Madison
The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. - Thomas Jefferson
What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the Spirit of Resistance. - Thomas Jefferson
That government is best which governs least. - Thomas Paine
Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. - John Adams
Americans need to re-commit themselves as a society to those principles that gave us freedom and liberty to start with. Such principles never change, and if forgotten, guarantee that loss of freedom & liberty will quickly follow. We see it playing out in the news every day.
Strat
I'm not as up on the DDT thing, but the fluorocarbon ban seems like a clear win to me. It was based on sound science, and the result matched the prediction fairly closely.
I would point you here for a start on the ozone topic: http://junksciencearchive.com/Ozone/ozone_seasonal.html
The DDT ban: http://junkscience.com/1999/07/26/100-things-you-should-know-about-ddt/
I'm also not a fan of the European RoHS laws (which I assume is what you're talking about when you say "eutectic solder".) This was based on very sketchy science, and the lead-free stuff is much harder to work with. But, unless you're in Europe, 60/40 is still for sale everywhere, as is 63/37.
Traditional tin/lead rosin-core electronics solder is getting harder and harder to find, and prices are climbing. I agree, it's still pretty widely available through retail outfits like Radio Shack and similar in the US at full retail price, but I buy my electronics parts & supplies through wholesale distribution houses that sell exclusively to commercial businesses like factories, service shops, etc.
Fewer and fewer commercial wholesale distributors are carrying tin/lead solder because most OEMs and other producers of electronics equipment in the US and abroad are, or are becoming, RoHS-compliant because so much trade is international, so they design equipment to meet both EU and US regulations.
Once demand drops below a certain level, many wholesale distributors will drop a product from their line-card like tin/lead solder or even vacuum tubes, for that matter. Where at one time I only had to deal with one distributor and shipping/invoicing/payment system, now I have to find, set up an account with, and learn the invoicing/shipping/payment system ropes of, one distributor for solder and another for my vacuum tubes, and yet another for other parts & tech supplies. Every so often, I've had to rinse and repeat to find another source for solder or vacuum tubes, or sometimes both.
Strat
One of the problem with this whole thing is that it only plays out over decades. The decisions made today will not reach their endgame for a generation or two. It seems to me that we're the proverbial frog being boiled by starting out in cold water. The temperature is rising slowly enough that we don't take action.
It is my firm belief, having been alive for over 5 decades to witness what Mankind, especially Americans, are capable of when challenged, that this slow-moving change will stimulate the technological advances needed to largely mitigate any climate change effects and relatively-smoothly adjust & adapt without the need for a sudden drastic reduction in living standards and levels of industrial development.
Just out of curiosity, what was your position on banning fluorocarbons as aerosol propellants?
The same as it is regarding other related environmental-related bans like DDT and the one that galls me and affects me most, the switch from standard 60/40 tin/lead solder to eutectic solder for electronics. The DDT ban has cost million of lives lost to malaria which was on the verge of being eliminated as a significant cause of death, was unnecessary, and was driven by bad science and politics just as with AGW.
The eutectic solder sucks big wads. It also poses a problem for me in restoring old vacuum-tube guitar amplifiers, as mixing the two doesn't work, and regular tin/lead solder is getting harder to find and becoming ever-more expensive.
This is exactly what I was talking about in the snippet of my post that you quoted. In order for any steps we take to reduce CO2 to make any difference, it will require attempting to prevent China/India/Africa from developing their industrial base and even reverse some of their current industrial development. This is just fantasy, as there's no way short of invasion (not likely) or nuclear war (much more likely) to convince these nations to take those sorts of actions.
Those in power who are pushing the AGW agenda are well-aware of this. They simply see this as an opportunity to use AGW as the next "for the children!" excuse to take more wealth from people (taxing corporations just passes taxes to people) and to expand government size and scope while reducing individual freedom & choice in favor of government mandates and control.
I'm no "denialist". Global average temps are likely trending upwards. Heck, man may even be contributing in a significant way to a natural trend. If they could show me credible evidence I'd be at the front carrying the AGW flag! But, we don't yet have the data or understanding of global climate systems to know that with any certainty, and therefor we also don't have the data or understanding to start tossing what may be monkey-wrenches into our only home's climate system or it may all be simply wasted effort, particularly as these actions come at great cost in terms of wealth, standards of living and quality of life, and human suffering and lives lost.
Seriously, I wouldn't stress too much over clim
Even if it's not a totally man made problem, if actions man can take can slow it down a little, should't they be attempted? Is your solution to do nothing and let the future sort itself out?
My solution is to do what Man has always done, use his technology to mitigate any very slow and gradual effects and adapt, while taking common-sense steps to limit pollution and conserve resources without massive wealth-redistribution or crippling national economies.
That solution doesn't call for entire populations to be locked into their current 3rd-world levels of development without the ability to raise their standards of living, or call for 1st-world populations to dramatically lower their standard of living, nor does it require widespread food & energy shortages and artificially-high energy prices that affect the poorest the most and will cause widespread starvation & death.
Heck, my solution may even lead to a worldwide economic and industrial boom, increase the global food supplies and reduce hunger, and put huge numbers to work while raising living standards among the poorest populations.
Even if we were to somehow totally remove all humans and human climate impacts going forward from the planet today, I haven't seen any studies that would indicate that the global average temperature rise would slow by even a whole degree over the next century.
Therefor I'll stick with my solution, TYVM. My solution lets me sleep at night knowing I'm not partially to blame for actions and policies that may well be condemning large masses of people to suffering, starvation, & death, while condemning others to remain stuck in 2nd- and 3rd-world living conditions and levels of development *while not actually solving the problem*.
Strat
Considering that taking the actions the AGW evangelists would have us take will cost many human lives, I put to you the same question I put to another poster above:
Are you ready to let yourself and your loved ones starve and freeze to death first if you're so sure? Or is it a different matter when it's you and yours including your children paying the price you demand from others? How far would you go in reducing your family's and your own standard of living and ability to feed yourselves and keep yourselves from freezing in winter?
So far, none of those who are clamoring for actions based on AGW that would condemn multitudes of people to death and bare-subsistence have shown themselves willing to condemn themselves first. It's always "those people over there need to suffer".
You first, bud.
Strat
When talking about taking actions that will affect every living thing on the entire planet, including possibly causing entire species (including humans), to go extinct if you get it wrong, maybe even destroying all life on the planet (possibly excepting a few hardy extreme-environment bacterial/virus-type, long-term-hibernation-capable organisms), you'd better be DAMNED SURE, and you'd better be ready to *prove it beyond a doubt* to the majority of the planet's population's satisfaction.
AGW evangelists are asking the entire planet to pay dearly in terms of human suffering in order to play Russian roulette with a pistol that has an unknown number of rounds in the cylinder, with only politically-motivated assurances that statistically there shouldn't be a "bang" when they'd have us pull the trigger.
All the while, they're screaming; "Didi mao! Didi mao!" instead of answering questions, and then they get all butt-hurt that so many people are telling them to bugger-off.
Strat
I'll simply quote what some posting farther down said quite well.
But the climate is not a coin toss. Just because statistics maps well to coin tosses does not mean it maps well to climate change and climate predictions. Climate models cannot be trusted or correct, and I am a physics (but admittedly not climate) based software modeler (degrees in CS and Physics and 30 years experience) so I know what I'm talking about. They cannot be tested and confirmed due to the long time spans. I need to see some accurate testing of the climate models before I build any confidence in them. Run the models at a much higher resolution for a shorter period of time (a year or two), and if they can accurately predict the average monthly global temperature, then I might start to listen to what they have to say.
As I posted above, the goals appear to be more about geopolitics and ideology than any actual science, as the actual science is getting short-shrift in favor of Alinsky-style attacks against anyone voicing criticism or asking too many questions, as well as cherry-picking data and models that verify the starting conclusions that AGW is occurring and that humans have the knowledge and understanding to fix it if only those in the industrialized, 1st-world West abandon much of the industrialization that supports a 1st-world level of lifestyle and those in the 2nd- and 3rd-world would only stop all development and remain struggling to survive and halt seeking raise the standard of living for their people.
And don't forget, the things the AGW evangelists are pushing will also necessitate heavy government control over most all aspects of global society including even national domestic laws with some form of global-governance body, incredibly high levels of individual taxation, reduced/costlier food supplies, and sacrificing individual liberty and even national sovereignty. We can even see a hint of the tactics to accomplish a global legal framework for global control of national domestic laws with the recent push for the secretive ACTA treaty.
The whole thing stinks like week-old rotten fish.
Strat
Oh please. The USA is one of the richest nations in the world.
It was in 1929 as well. Nothing is forever, especially not going into ever-more debt without a hope of paying it back. The gravy train always ends, and there are always people just like you caught completely unawares despite the writing on the wall, and even denying it's occurring in the middle of the collapse despite watching the figurative bankers take suicide dives off of buildings, seeing the factories boarded up, and having to walk around the long soup lines. None so blind, and all that.
Look to Greece, as that's the future if things don't radically change, and quickly. It may already be too late for the US. To voluntarily cripple our economy and our ability to create wealth in an effort to appease AGW evangelists under these conditions is utter idiocy and would be solid qualification for a Darwin Award.
Strat
Nice attempt, but climate is not a binary, 50/50, either/or statistical problem. There are nearly infinite variables involved, and many important variables we aren't even aware of yet, and many that we are aware of, we haven't been able to sufficiently predict with enough accuracy and certainty to condemn vast numbers of people to starvation, poverty, and death based on them.
Unless, of course, the goals are actually more geopolitical/ideological than scientific, then it doesn't matter if it's accurate at all as long as enough people can be convinced to go along and people who question it are isolated, ridiculed, and personally attacked & destroyed. That "attacked and ridiculed" bit we see here all the time on Slashdot whenever AGW comes up and someone argues against the /. pro-AGW group-think.
Strat
Why is it that the USA can seemingly find enough money for a recent war in the Middle East, or a recent war out in Asia, or even spending billions and billions on a new security agency, but spending a similar amount of money on something different would cause "certain economic collapse and widespread death, starvation & suffering".
Because first they are not remotely equivalent sums. Second, that spending was just as unwise, and is having disastrous effects that have helped to put the US in it's current economic mess (along with unbridled domestic borrowing and spending on bread-and-circuses meant to assure election/re-election of the "right" politicians) and does not make a case for doubling-down on stupid.
Strat
Yeah, but billions of people's very lives depend on those hydrocarbons to produce food and warmth. Or do you favor the Stalinist method of targeted famines? If so, will you volunteer to starve and freeze yourself and your family to death first as an example?
I didn't think so.
So, why do you think it's OK to demand others starve and freeze to death if you're not willing to?
Strat
What we need to solve this is a ban on U.S. and European companies building coal-based plants in other countriesâ"make it as hard as possible for developing nations to get their start using coal and as easy as possible for them to get their start using more modern power production.
So you're suggesting that the US and EU collude to prevent other countries from advancing beyond an agrarian society unless they make themselves dependent on technology from another country that doesn't have their and their people's best interests at heart?
Well, congratulations. We won't have to wait around for a possible, theoretical, climate disaster. Don't forget that China and India both have nuclear bombs and missiles. That will start WW3, and then everybody will be screwed.
Great plan. I don't recall seeing any climate problems in Fallout 3.
Strat
I agree, failing to protect our future from death is far less important than profits now.
No, you got it wrong.
What he's saying is that with the US economy in the state it's in now, it's a choice of certain economic collapse and widespread death, starvation, & suffering for a near-certainty now in order to *maybe* prevent/delay something that may well be a totally natural phenomenon and may or may not be catastrophic decades down the line, or surviving now, and maybe having a problem later...a problem that depends on IF all the politically-motivated AGW furor and all the flawed climate models and debunked "hockey sticks" actually turn out NOT to be a political ploy to cover a move for global wealth-redistribution and a scam to skim wealth off of carbon-trading, none of which actually fixes anything supposedly broken with the climate, they just move money from one set of pockets to another.
Strat
Strat
I wouldn't count on China to share much of any advances they make with their space program with the rest of the world. Anything truly worthwhile that gives China an advantage will be kept by China and not freely shared like NASA or the ESA does with the knowledge and data they gather from space exploration.
If you think the US is a world bully, wait until China becomes the main and/or sole remaining superpower. As the saying goes, "you ain't seen nothin' yet!". Judging from what they have shown themselves willing to do to their own people with hardly a second thought, I don't see good things coming for the planet with China being the only or most-powerful superpower.
The US has borrowed itself nearly into collapse, as politicians use borrowed money to finance their bread and circuses to assure election/re-election and make the population dependent on government largesse, thus bringing them under ever-increasing levels of government control.
The US government has, since the cold war has ended, slowly reduced space exploration's priority for government spending in favor of domestic entitlement programs to further government dependence and to finance increases in the size of government to manage all the entitlement programs and to further regulate, imprison, and intrusively monitor the population into eventual total subservience to the government.
In order for the US space program to receive the kind of priority and levels of funding seen in the '60s, either there needs to be another "cold war" and space-race, or a successful US domestic rebellion and the current government overthrown for one that doesn't view the US Constitution as so much toilet paper and actually represents the people that elect them.
I fear we may soon find we're living out that ancient Chinese curse; "May you live in interesting times".
Strat
Well, I wonder if Aereo is really Singlecasting.
Well, that would be up to the networks to prove in a court of law, and then make a link to the rebroadcasting rules/laws that will stand up in court.
If the court determines Aereo is in violation of rebroadcasting rules/regulations/laws despite "singlecasting", that could spell trouble for SlingBox and it's users. Which, of course, the networks and content providers would love. That's quite a legal hurdle to overcome, however, IMHO. Of course, IANAL and all that other disclaimer junk.
Strat
The thing is, even a Cable Company needs permission to pick up a local station and rebroadcast it.
There's where the problem is.
There's that pesky first syllable in the word "broadcast" that defines it to mean "cast broadly", which is almost the exact opposite of what Aereo is doing.
The networks want to call this "rebroadcasting" when it's actually "singlecasting" from an antenna that is the recipients property (rented property is considered legally to be "owned" by the person renting it, in the sense that a TV from Rent-A-Center that's paid up sitting in your living room is "yours" if someone steals it, or the house you rent is "yours" for the purposes of trespass, burglary, etc). It would be much like them claiming that it's illegal to watch their OTA broadcasts if you receive them through an antenna on your roof that you rented and did not buy outright.
Strat
Then why do they keep voting the same idiots over and over again ?
Because politicians in the US learned long ago how to use propaganda tactics and social engineering to keep the population divided, distracted, dependent, poor, angry, and envious, while also assuming federal control of and dumbing-down the public education system so as to leave the population largely without the ability to think critically or with a proper knowledge of un-re-written history, which combined, has the effect of leaving the population open to populist, emotional issues used ultimately to assure election and re-election of the "right" politicians, and passage of laws/Acts/regulations to expand government power and control while removing individual freedom a piece at a time.
It's quite horribly brilliant and effective.
Strat
Tube distortion isn't lost in a later A/D/A. The harmonics are quite well and alive. Bad A/D is its own problem, but studio quality A/D at high frequencies and bit depths will preserve it much better than tape will. Do you think that the Marshall sound suddenly reverts back to clean when people play it back from a CD?
The "feed it through a deck later" isn't about tube distortion. That's about the "tape compression" sound that drummers and some guitarists love. Why do you think you can't get it by feeding a good digital recording into a deck and then playing it back?
ANY kind of distortion can always be applied later if you have a clean recording, and 24/96 or 24/192 is a much cleaner recording than you'll ever get in the analog world.
But they don't *sound* the same for all their digital accuracy. That's the problem with these discussions. It's all subjective and dependent on how individuals hear things.
I used to think much as you did. "What does it matter if the tape compression (or distortion) is added afterwards?"...but for some reason, it *does* matter and *does* make a difference. I've learned this through decades of experience and from some of the very best professional recording and production engineers in the business.
I'm not trying to convince anyone to change what sounds best for them. Again, that's subjective. I'm just saying that other opinions are just as valid, and that it's up to the individual to choose for themselves what sounds best to them. It's like other things in music, like what is the "best" sounding guitar or pickup, or what is the "best" sounding loudspeaker. There is no absolute "right" answer.
Strat