To elucidate on this point a bit further, Canada's system *works.* We might not like the results (and who does? Inevitably, a politician is elected. Seems a rather unfair consequence, really.), but it works.
Voting centres are set up most anywhere that there's adequate floor space: generally, gymnasiums and halls. A greeter asks to see your voter registration card, and then directs you to the appropriate tables; a wholly unnecessary step, because the tables are clearly marked with a pair of letters that indicate what range of names ("Aa"rdvark to "Bo"gart, etc) they're taking.
Being Canadian, you line up nice and neatly, and patiently await your turn to vote. Pushing ahead in the line, or making catcalls at a particularly slow voter, would be un-Canadian, and we'd all have to scowl at you and possibly mutter under our breath.
Once you get to your voting table, you're greeted by at least two, and perhaps three, volunteers. They're from opposing parties, to keep each other honest.
One of them takes your voter registration card and scratches your name from the master list. The other waits until that process is complete, and then tears a voter card from a booklet. You're then instructed, using the same words you heard given the previous voter, on how to clearly and properly mark the card. The volunteer pre-folds the card and hands it to you.
A short cardboard booth is set up at the end of the table. You can see over it, but no one can actually see what you're marking down. It's a little discomfiting; seems to me that last time, our booths completely hid us from sight.
The voting ballot has a black background. 1.25cm (that's half-inch, in obsolete terms) white strips line the page. In each strip, printed large, is the name of the candidate and their party affiliation. Directly beside the white strip, to the right, is a white circle.
The names are in alphabetical order, last name first, first name last. You place a mark across from the candidate you want to elect. Because each region elects only a single Member of Parliment, you only mark off one circle.
You fold the card, and fold over the retaining flap, so that the card doesn't flop over. You hand the card to the volunteer, who makes sure that the flap is secure, and then drops it into the vote box as you watch. I believe there's every chance that the volunteer asks if you marked off one, and only one, candidate.
And away you go, happy to have participated in a futile ceremony that will surely see no real changes made to the social, political or economic fabric of the country. No, I'm not bitter. Not at all.
After the polls close, the volunteers dump the votes out on the table and begin counting them. There's a paid overseer with a big bullwhip that makes sure they do the job quickly and correctly. Quite possibly, there are plenty of party representatives watching over the vote-counting process.
There are no pregnant, well-hung, dimpled chads. There's either a clear mark in one circle, or there's an invalid ballot. The count goes quickly. All the ballots go into a lockbox, for safeguarding.
I suspect that only the Australians have a better system, and that only because it seems that their elections office is self-supporting, because it does such a fine job that it contracts itself out to provincial, municipal, union and other votes.
The American system, on the other hand, is appallingly asinine.
The sad thing is that the ol' fart has rapidly declining hearing. It's an unavoidable consequence of growing older. So while he may have a truly kick-ass system, he can't really hear it!
Yes, I exagerrate. On the other hand, so does he. Concrete pillars to bedrock? Pshaw.
Well, yah, I'll give you that. I was trying to convey the idea that it isn't discrete: it can't be quanticized. Dunno how to put it into layman terms... "continuous" is good, I guess.
I came from a middling-large (~1M pop) city of aggressive drivers, to a small (~25K pop) town of doddling seniors. Within the first month I had to make the conscious decision to slow down and relax, or die of stress.
I'm sure you can make the same decision.
I'll want some sort of clinical trials studies performed to prove that the average driver can perform as-well or better when drugged up on whatever you care to name.
Until such time, best we err on the side of caution, and demand undrugged, attentive drivers.
In Canada, the hemp industry is already alive, well and kicking ass.
All in all, I'd prefer the American government to keep both marijuana and hemp illegal. Doing so does wonders for the Canadian economy. BC pot trades ounce-for-ounce for American-supplied cocaine across the border. And we're pretty much the only source for good hemp.
Canada has an export economy. The less America is able to provide pot and hemp for itself, the better off Canada is.:-)
[oooooh, idle thought: isn't the FBI/CIA/NSA/whatever the hell spook system y'all run down there tracking *EVERYTHING* we're saying?! Damn!]
You can't, at least in British Columbia, brew your own beer and *sell* it, Ditto for wine and, I'm sure, for tobacco. The no-selling rule works for some other countries/provinces/states, where possession of personal amounts is not prosecuted, but sale remains illegal.
As for driving, we need something that reduces the amount of vehicular manslaughter that's happening on our roads -- and, in my opinion, *EVERY* so-called accident with a fatality is out-and-out murder-through-carelessness or -idiocy. Let's start treating it as murder.
I think reaction time tests are a fine idea. Let's get the sleepy-headed drivers and addled seniors off the roads. But let's also back it up with some drug testing, to really discourage people from driving drugged. After all, we don't want people to think that a little coke to tweak the reflexes is a good idea!
[Footnote: You might think you're a better driver when stoned, when the reality is that you're a better driver when you relax. You don't need a drug to do that: you need the common-sense to recognize that you choose your attitude. Mellow out. Calm down. Recognize that in the long run, it's all just small shit. It'll save your life, if not from a traffic accident, then from stress-induced heart failure or ulcers!]
You need to pay more attention in your history class, bub.
EDSAC, in 1949, used 35-bit words. The same year, BINAC used 31-bit words. 1951, the EDVAC with 44-bit words; and the IBM "Defense Computer" with 36-bit words.
Now, granted, these were binary bits; but it does show that powers-of-two are not necessary and, indeed, weren't even the norm back in the beginning.
There's no reason not to use three bits. It's fifty-percent more complicated to detect than binary, but twenty-five percent less complicated than detecting a four-state system. And tri-state electronics are plenty common, whereas four-state electronics aren't.
I think that as a proof-of-technology, 3 bits is the logical choice. As the technology advances, we'll undoubtedly see more bits-per-recording-pit.
Analog means infinitely variable values: in other words, decimal values.
Digital means discrete values: in other words, only certain values are permissible.
Tri-state is digital: there are only three possible values, and there are no in-between values.
There are some excellent arguments to be made for using digital technology that goes beyond simple on/off. Easier to build fuzzy-logic devices, f'rinstance. Two tri-states provide more than twice what you get from two binary states, without requiring twice the circuit complexity, and the savings increase exponentially the greater the number of sensors/indicators/controls needed.
They may drive more cautiously, but their reaction times and decision-making capacity are diminished.
Let's cut to the chase: it's time to start demanding higher standards of driver skills and decisions.
There are damn few true automobile "accidents" out there: the root cause of most of the carnage out there is directly due to driver idiocy or carelessness. It's costing our society a fucking bijillion needless deaths every year, with that trauma not only impacting the occupants of the vehicle, but their families, employers, and our infrastructure (hospitals, fire departments, cops, etc).
This could easily turn into a helluva rant, but I'll stop here.
Vis a vis grow-your-own, sure. Depends how much we want our governments to profit. I'd prefer to grow than to purchase; I'm currently doing it with wine.
More important point is that it's still regulated/controlled. Just because I vintered it doesn't mean I can sell it to the public, or even (legally) sell it to close friends.
Decriminalization is *extremely* important and is the only way we're going to save our countries from going bankrupt from this idiotic fantasy called "war on drugs."
If all drugs -- *ALL* drugs -- were legalized, and taxed at point of sale, personal income taxes could be eliminated. If the government were to get involved in its manufacture, testing and distribution, there'd be all that much more profit for it.
Controlling its use? Hey, do it just like we control the use of alcohol and tobacco and codiene. Sell the use-at-home drugs over the counter at the local pharmacy. Sell the more radical drugs for use at licensed "pub" establishments, which have medical staff on-hand to deal with any bad shit that happens.
The naysayers shriek "Oh no! But look at the problems our society currently has with alcohol and tobacco! Any damn kid can get ahold of booze and ciggies! God forbid they get ahold of pot, coke and horse!"
Sorry, buddy, but the kids *already* have access to that shit. The solution isn't to make it harder for them to get it: that's been tried and has failed.
The solution is to get serious about prosecuting those assholes who endanger others by their use of it.
Drunk driver? Mandatory loss of license for one year, and several months jail-time to boot. Second offense, big jail-time and permanent loss of license and license to drink. Unlicensed driving? Jail-time, asshole. Drunk driver kills someone? Hey, I'm all for eye-for-an-eye justice in that case.
And the same can be done for drivers stoned, high or otherwise doped-up. And for drivers who are putting on their makeup, chatting on their cellphone or otherwise abusing their driving privileges.
Caught selling drugs on the street? Mandatory jail-time and a massive fine. Caught growing your own? Mandatory jail-time and fine.
Drug habit is destroying your ability to raise your family? You lose your family, at least temporarily, and go into drug rehab and parent training. Given the tools to do things better.
Turn into a drug abuser, shooting up way too much horse? Drug rehab is made available. Unable to hold a job because of it? Well, then, getting welfare is contingent on entering drug rehab and then a back-to-work support program.
All the potential problems are solveable by a combination of punishment and rehab support.
There'd be far fewer people in jail, far fewer disrupted lives, lower taxes, greater personal responsibility. It'd be a damn big step in the right direction...
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Re:The war on drugs has always been a joke.
on
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The best book on the absurdity of consensual crime is Peter McWilliam's "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do."
You can [read the entire book online]. It's very thought-provoking, and stands a good chance of significantly changing the way you've been programmed to think.
Free your mind, AC.:-)
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Re:Why is the war still raging?
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"Traffic"
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· Score: 3
Just for kicks, let's through in the Corporate Government.
Anyone with two brain cells to rub together acknowledges that marijuana is a far less harmful drug than alcohol or tobacco, and recognizes the absurdity of illegalizing it.
The Corporate Government is intent on creating a passive mass public over the next thirty to fifty years. A public that performs its duty as a consumer society, buying every p.o.s. merchandise that they can get their hands on; and working as good little labourers who toe the company line and don't demand better wages, better benefits or better hours.
Those people who use marijuana can only be considered dangerous free-thinking/free-acting radicals who are a threat to the Corporate Government power structure. They're the rabble-rousing riff-raff who would have the guts to demand company medical coverage, safer working conditions or, god forbid, vacation time.
These sorts of people must be eliminated, so that they can no longer influence the passive, mass public.
Goodness. I should be writing for X-Files.
But I betcha there's a kernel of truth in there...
$35/mo ISP cost, 3Gb xfer limit, ISP expects an average 20% use of xfer limit.
Effectively, $35/60Mb xfer per month.
Assume net profit of 10%. Actual cost of providing service, then, = $31.50. (Net profit includes *all* expenses of providing service, and is typically well below 15%, and usually gets down to less than 5%. I'm being very generous.)
Cost of providing service = $31.50/60Mb = 0.05 cents per kilobyte.
Average spam = 1k (HTML format these days, y'know). Average 20 spam received per day.
Average 60s time spent dealing with spam per day. Average wage $10/hr. Population = 330 million for North America. Average 30% population uses EMail daily.
Equals nearly 2 billion spams per day.
Equals nearly 2 gigabytes of spam xferred per day.
Equals $16.5 million dollars *per day* in wasted time.
Equals nearly $1 million dollars *per day* in wasted ISP resources.
Equals $64 **out of your pocket** every year, because those costs are ultimately paid for by you, the consumer of EMail services.
If I browse with images enabled, I *choose* to. If I were paying exorbitant per-second connection charges -- and I was, back in the early 90's, using a slow modem and long-distance dial-in -- I would choose to browse with graphics disabled.
I'm not offered that choice with EMail. I have no simple method for blocking spam at the server. I must, at the least, download the headers.
Further, you're only considering the costs as an individual.
There are ISPs with *millions* of users. So multiply your figures appropriately: it works out to gigabytes of information. It's a huge waste of resources, including "time to download."
Get out of the "how does this impact me as an individual" box. The EMail servers must spend some amount of time to download the spam. It is significant.
That was a wonderful, nearly-incoherent post. I think I've got the gist of what you're saying, though, and I regret to inform you that you're wrong.
It isn't "really" another form of a company attempting to get your attention.
It *really* is a way for a company to force you to subsidize their marketing costs, whether you purchase the product or not.
In all other cases of advertising, you implicitly choose to suppose the costs of advertising when you choose to purchase the product.
About fifteen years ago, an exactly analogous situation existed: spam fax. In those days, faxes were thermafax: they used special paper that was bloody expensive.
Spam marketers had no problem using war-dialers to spread their marketing information to every fax machine they could. The costs to businesses were obvious, as their thermafax paper was rapidly consumed.
Unsolicited faxes were made illegal. It was decided that no business should be able to force others to pay for its advertising costs.
It's only because EMail costs are hidden, mainly unaccounted for and are new-tech, that the governments haven't stepped in to ban EMail spam.
The legal and moral issues have already been determined, by the previous spam-fax ban.
Your points re: porn advertising, AOL et al are irrelevent.
Well of *course* they raise the cost of your AOL subscription. So what?
Coca Cola spends a fortune on marketing. If you purchase a Coke, you are implicitly choosing to pay Coke for its advertising.
If you choose to purchase a Pepsi, you are *not* paying for Coke's advertising. Coke's advertising costs are born only by Coke, and you have chosen to not support those costs.
Spam doesn't offer you that choice.
No matter which ISP you subscribe to, you will be paying for the advertising of several hundred spam-using companies.
You are *forced* to subsidize their marketing costs.
Because, Santa, receiving AOL CDs doesn't cost you a penny, whereas receiving spam EMail does cost you.
"But I've never had to pay for it!" you cry.
Actually, you do. The Euro recipients know this right up front, because they get cold-cocked with per-second telephone access charges.
Americans *should* know it, if they'd only just think for a moment. They get higher ISP charges and/or go over their transfer limits because of the spam email.
Yes, yes. You only pay $35/month for your whizbang ADSL connection. But that $35/month *includes* the cost of spam. Your ISP is paying for the transfer, storage and processing of that spam EMail -- and you *know* that the costs are passed on to the consumer, with a few percent tacked on for good luck.
You pay for the spam, sure as god/dog made little green apples.
As I ranted in [a previous post,] in the Digital TV copy restrictions article, Corporations are systematically creating an environment where people don't count.
Overly broad patents are one way of accomplishing this. It stifles what the public is independently allowed to do, let alone what other companies may do.
The entire point is to replace individual human rights with Corporate Rights.
As an example of this movement, consider air pollution. A law was passed in Canada banning the use of MBTA as a fuel additive. (MBTA is a replacement for lead, and has been found to be even less healthy than lead.) A US manufacturer of MBTA sued and won, claiming damage to business.
My right to breathe clean air is being challenged by that Corporation. If the penalty had been stiff enough, there's every chance my government would have folded like a house of cards and re-allowed use of MBTA in gasoline.
What a fucking joy *that* would be: I get to have cancer, because some bastard business in *another country* doesn't like *my* country's clean-air laws.
Gene patents are just an extension of this Corporate-First attitude. The patents reduce competition, by discouraging research into the claimed field. The result: drug prices remain high, Corporations make big bucks, and people suffer as fewer therapies, tests or cures are discovered, due to the reduced research for the patented gene.
And you know what? This whole Corporate Government/Corporate Rights/Corporate First trend is a helluva juggernaut, and not a one of us is in any position to stop it.
Somewhere in the Declaration of Independence is a line about "The public will endure suffering passively, until the suffering becomes insuffering, and they rise up in revolution."
Well, it ain't insufferable yet. Won't be for a good long time...
...and maybe by then, the 1984/Brave New World mindset will be so entrenched, that people won't even realize that it's insufferable. They'll continue to endure what we'd take up arms against, because they know no better.
(1) putting unique serial number hardware directly on the controller boards for all electronics;
(2) modifying the digital data stream to insert both (a) a copy protection bit ("original media" versus "first-gen copy") and (b) the serial number of the source output unit; and, finally,
(3) installing hardware-based copy protection that (a) disallows second-gen copies and (b) disallows playback of the copy on anything but the original source output unit.
The CPRM initiative for hard drives, the copy-protection bit on all CD/DAT/Minidisc/DVD/etc media, the DCMA act, the lawsuits against Napster, CSS, region-restricted playback of DVDs, ebook copy restrictions, software lease-oriented licensing... fuck, man, *EVERYTHING* points toward greater Corporate Control of what you can do with the media you purchase.
Your "little" sister of 16 is the tail end of the generation that gets to experience copy freedom.
It's the five-year olds of today that are going to be put over the barrel as adult labourers and consumers.
Your hopes for the legislature are cute, but unrealistic. All major world governments are controlled by corporate interests at this point: any signs of them operating for the public good are, at best, an illusion to pacify the masses. Especially in the USA, money speaks -- and you, my friend, simply don't have the bucks to buy yourself the legislation you want, while the MPAA and RIAA purchased themselves the DCMA with very few problems.
You think the Corporations of the world are going to just sit back and let teenagers steal their profits? Dream on.
[As an aside, does your sister freely give money over to the MPAA, to watch whatever fetid p.o.s. Adam Sandler "comedy" they're hawking to her? Does she freely give money to the RIAA, to purchase the latest prefabricated boy-toy p.o.s. glam-band "music" they're selling? *Someone* is, and if ain't her, it's one of her tasteless teeny-aged friends.
In your dreams is Napster piracy some sort of sign that teenagers ain't doing what Corporations want. Brittany didn't get her millions because teenagers rebelled. The teenagers have plenty of cash burning a hole in their pockets, and the Corporations, from GAP to Sony to MPAA have their number. Your sister is being played like a cheap fiddle, and she *loves* it.]
The mass public is too apathetic to get off their soggy arses and demand that they receive better treatment. The hullabaloo you read on Slashdot is an extreme minority view (and even those who cry loudest will are too likely to do nothing).
The mass adult public will be disgruntled, but they'll accept it.
The *kids*, on the other hand, will grow up believing that the normal way of the world is for corporations to have ulimate control over everything.
This begins to sound like a paranoid statement, but I think there's a kernel of truth to it: Corporate America is making moves towards creating a society in which Corporate Government is the accepted norm, and in which citizens are, first and foremost, passive consumers of goods and, secondly, passive labourers in production of goods.
Indeed, it's like the old mining towns, reborn on a national scale. You work for the company and you spend your money at the company store, live in the company house and drive the company car.
Slashdot Mirror
(I might clarify that the vote-counting is done by representatives of opposing parties. They keep each other honest.)
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To elucidate on this point a bit further, Canada's system *works.* We might not like the results (and who does? Inevitably, a politician is elected. Seems a rather unfair consequence, really.), but it works.
Voting centres are set up most anywhere that there's adequate floor space: generally, gymnasiums and halls. A greeter asks to see your voter registration card, and then directs you to the appropriate tables; a wholly unnecessary step, because the tables are clearly marked with a pair of letters that indicate what range of names ("Aa"rdvark to "Bo"gart, etc) they're taking.
Being Canadian, you line up nice and neatly, and patiently await your turn to vote. Pushing ahead in the line, or making catcalls at a particularly slow voter, would be un-Canadian, and we'd all have to scowl at you and possibly mutter under our breath.
Once you get to your voting table, you're greeted by at least two, and perhaps three, volunteers. They're from opposing parties, to keep each other honest.
One of them takes your voter registration card and scratches your name from the master list. The other waits until that process is complete, and then tears a voter card from a booklet. You're then instructed, using the same words you heard given the previous voter, on how to clearly and properly mark the card. The volunteer pre-folds the card and hands it to you.
A short cardboard booth is set up at the end of the table. You can see over it, but no one can actually see what you're marking down. It's a little discomfiting; seems to me that last time, our booths completely hid us from sight.
The voting ballot has a black background. 1.25cm (that's half-inch, in obsolete terms) white strips line the page. In each strip, printed large, is the name of the candidate and their party affiliation. Directly beside the white strip, to the right, is a white circle.
The names are in alphabetical order, last name first, first name last. You place a mark across from the candidate you want to elect. Because each region elects only a single Member of Parliment, you only mark off one circle.
You fold the card, and fold over the retaining flap, so that the card doesn't flop over. You hand the card to the volunteer, who makes sure that the flap is secure, and then drops it into the vote box as you watch. I believe there's every chance that the volunteer asks if you marked off one, and only one, candidate.
And away you go, happy to have participated in a futile ceremony that will surely see no real changes made to the social, political or economic fabric of the country. No, I'm not bitter. Not at all.
After the polls close, the volunteers dump the votes out on the table and begin counting them. There's a paid overseer with a big bullwhip that makes sure they do the job quickly and correctly. Quite possibly, there are plenty of party representatives watching over the vote-counting process.
There are no pregnant, well-hung, dimpled chads. There's either a clear mark in one circle, or there's an invalid ballot. The count goes quickly. All the ballots go into a lockbox, for safeguarding.
I suspect that only the Australians have a better system, and that only because it seems that their elections office is self-supporting, because it does such a fine job that it contracts itself out to provincial, municipal, union and other votes.
The American system, on the other hand, is appallingly asinine.
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The sad thing is that the ol' fart has rapidly declining hearing. It's an unavoidable consequence of growing older. So while he may have a truly kick-ass system, he can't really hear it!
Yes, I exagerrate. On the other hand, so does he. Concrete pillars to bedrock? Pshaw.
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Speaking of kiddieporn boogeymen,
It's time for an update from Holland, Michigan -- What happened with your libraries pr0n filters debacle?!
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Well, yah, I'll give you that. I was trying to convey the idea that it isn't discrete: it can't be quanticized. Dunno how to put it into layman terms... "continuous" is good, I guess.
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You *can* brew your own, you just can't sell it.
I came from a middling-large (~1M pop) city of aggressive drivers, to a small (~25K pop) town of doddling seniors. Within the first month I had to make the conscious decision to slow down and relax, or die of stress.
I'm sure you can make the same decision.
I'll want some sort of clinical trials studies performed to prove that the average driver can perform as-well or better when drugged up on whatever you care to name.
Until such time, best we err on the side of caution, and demand undrugged, attentive drivers.
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In Canada, the hemp industry is already alive, well and kicking ass.
:-)
All in all, I'd prefer the American government to keep both marijuana and hemp illegal. Doing so does wonders for the Canadian economy. BC pot trades ounce-for-ounce for American-supplied cocaine across the border. And we're pretty much the only source for good hemp.
Canada has an export economy. The less America is able to provide pot and hemp for itself, the better off Canada is.
[oooooh, idle thought: isn't the FBI/CIA/NSA/whatever the hell spook system y'all run down there tracking *EVERYTHING* we're saying?! Damn!]
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You can't, at least in British Columbia, brew your own beer and *sell* it, Ditto for wine and, I'm sure, for tobacco. The no-selling rule works for some other countries/provinces/states, where possession of personal amounts is not prosecuted, but sale remains illegal.
As for driving, we need something that reduces the amount of vehicular manslaughter that's happening on our roads -- and, in my opinion, *EVERY* so-called accident with a fatality is out-and-out murder-through-carelessness or -idiocy. Let's start treating it as murder.
I think reaction time tests are a fine idea. Let's get the sleepy-headed drivers and addled seniors off the roads. But let's also back it up with some drug testing, to really discourage people from driving drugged. After all, we don't want people to think that a little coke to tweak the reflexes is a good idea!
[Footnote: You might think you're a better driver when stoned, when the reality is that you're a better driver when you relax. You don't need a drug to do that: you need the common-sense to recognize that you choose your attitude. Mellow out. Calm down. Recognize that in the long run, it's all just small shit. It'll save your life, if not from a traffic accident, then from stress-induced heart failure or ulcers!]
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Damn. That's what I get for pretending to be an electronics engineer!
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You need to pay more attention in your history class, bub.
EDSAC, in 1949, used 35-bit words. The same year, BINAC used 31-bit words. 1951, the EDVAC with 44-bit words; and the IBM "Defense Computer" with 36-bit words.
Now, granted, these were binary bits; but it does show that powers-of-two are not necessary and, indeed, weren't even the norm back in the beginning.
There's no reason not to use three bits. It's fifty-percent more complicated to detect than binary, but twenty-five percent less complicated than detecting a four-state system. And tri-state electronics are plenty common, whereas four-state electronics aren't.
I think that as a proof-of-technology, 3 bits is the logical choice. As the technology advances, we'll undoubtedly see more bits-per-recording-pit.
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Analog means infinitely variable values: in other words, decimal values.
Digital means discrete values: in other words, only certain values are permissible.
Tri-state is digital: there are only three possible values, and there are no in-between values.
There are some excellent arguments to be made for using digital technology that goes beyond simple on/off. Easier to build fuzzy-logic devices, f'rinstance. Two tri-states provide more than twice what you get from two binary states, without requiring twice the circuit complexity, and the savings increase exponentially the greater the number of sensors/indicators/controls needed.
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They may drive more cautiously, but their reaction times and decision-making capacity are diminished.
Let's cut to the chase: it's time to start demanding higher standards of driver skills and decisions.
There are damn few true automobile "accidents" out there: the root cause of most of the carnage out there is directly due to driver idiocy or carelessness. It's costing our society a fucking bijillion needless deaths every year, with that trauma not only impacting the occupants of the vehicle, but their families, employers, and our infrastructure (hospitals, fire departments, cops, etc).
This could easily turn into a helluva rant, but I'll stop here.
Vis a vis grow-your-own, sure. Depends how much we want our governments to profit. I'd prefer to grow than to purchase; I'm currently doing it with wine.
More important point is that it's still regulated/controlled. Just because I vintered it doesn't mean I can sell it to the public, or even (legally) sell it to close friends.
Decriminalization is *extremely* important and is the only way we're going to save our countries from going bankrupt from this idiotic fantasy called "war on drugs."
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Damn straight.
If all drugs -- *ALL* drugs -- were legalized, and taxed at point of sale, personal income taxes could be eliminated. If the government were to get involved in its manufacture, testing and distribution, there'd be all that much more profit for it.
Controlling its use? Hey, do it just like we control the use of alcohol and tobacco and codiene. Sell the use-at-home drugs over the counter at the local pharmacy. Sell the more radical drugs for use at licensed "pub" establishments, which have medical staff on-hand to deal with any bad shit that happens.
The naysayers shriek "Oh no! But look at the problems our society currently has with alcohol and tobacco! Any damn kid can get ahold of booze and ciggies! God forbid they get ahold of pot, coke and horse!"
Sorry, buddy, but the kids *already* have access to that shit. The solution isn't to make it harder for them to get it: that's been tried and has failed.
The solution is to get serious about prosecuting those assholes who endanger others by their use of it.
Drunk driver? Mandatory loss of license for one year, and several months jail-time to boot. Second offense, big jail-time and permanent loss of license and license to drink. Unlicensed driving? Jail-time, asshole. Drunk driver kills someone? Hey, I'm all for eye-for-an-eye justice in that case.
And the same can be done for drivers stoned, high or otherwise doped-up. And for drivers who are putting on their makeup, chatting on their cellphone or otherwise abusing their driving privileges.
Caught selling drugs on the street? Mandatory jail-time and a massive fine. Caught growing your own? Mandatory jail-time and fine.
Drug habit is destroying your ability to raise your family? You lose your family, at least temporarily, and go into drug rehab and parent training. Given the tools to do things better.
Turn into a drug abuser, shooting up way too much horse? Drug rehab is made available. Unable to hold a job because of it? Well, then, getting welfare is contingent on entering drug rehab and then a back-to-work support program.
All the potential problems are solveable by a combination of punishment and rehab support.
There'd be far fewer people in jail, far fewer disrupted lives, lower taxes, greater personal responsibility. It'd be a damn big step in the right direction...
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The best book on the absurdity of consensual crime is Peter McWilliam's "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do."
:-)
You can [read the entire book online]. It's very thought-provoking, and stands a good chance of significantly changing the way you've been programmed to think.
Free your mind, AC.
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Just for kicks, let's through in the Corporate Government.
Anyone with two brain cells to rub together acknowledges that marijuana is a far less harmful drug than alcohol or tobacco, and recognizes the absurdity of illegalizing it.
The Corporate Government is intent on creating a passive mass public over the next thirty to fifty years. A public that performs its duty as a consumer society, buying every p.o.s. merchandise that they can get their hands on; and working as good little labourers who toe the company line and don't demand better wages, better benefits or better hours.
Those people who use marijuana can only be considered dangerous free-thinking/free-acting radicals who are a threat to the Corporate Government power structure. They're the rabble-rousing riff-raff who would have the guts to demand company medical coverage, safer working conditions or, god forbid, vacation time.
These sorts of people must be eliminated, so that they can no longer influence the passive, mass public.
Goodness. I should be writing for X-Files.
But I betcha there's a kernel of truth in there...
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Sorry. One of my calculations is off by a factor of ten.
20% of 3Gb is 600Mb.
Cost/k is then 0.005 cents.
ISPs lose only $100 000 *per day*.
Which works out to still be over $60/year being stolen from your wallet.
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$35/mo ISP cost, 3Gb xfer limit, ISP expects an average 20% use of xfer limit.
Effectively, $35/60Mb xfer per month.
Assume net profit of 10%. Actual cost of providing service, then, = $31.50. (Net profit includes *all* expenses of providing service, and is typically well below 15%, and usually gets down to less than 5%. I'm being very generous.)
Cost of providing service = $31.50/60Mb = 0.05 cents per kilobyte.
Average spam = 1k (HTML format these days, y'know). Average 20 spam received per day.
Average 60s time spent dealing with spam per day. Average wage $10/hr. Population = 330 million for North America. Average 30% population uses EMail daily.
Equals nearly 2 billion spams per day.
Equals nearly 2 gigabytes of spam xferred per day.
Equals $16.5 million dollars *per day* in wasted time.
Equals nearly $1 million dollars *per day* in wasted ISP resources.
Equals $64 **out of your pocket** every year, because those costs are ultimately paid for by you, the consumer of EMail services.
And that's an optimistic figure.
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"Time to Download" does perfectly hold water.
If I browse with images enabled, I *choose* to. If I were paying exorbitant per-second connection charges -- and I was, back in the early 90's, using a slow modem and long-distance dial-in -- I would choose to browse with graphics disabled.
I'm not offered that choice with EMail. I have no simple method for blocking spam at the server. I must, at the least, download the headers.
Further, you're only considering the costs as an individual.
There are ISPs with *millions* of users. So multiply your figures appropriately: it works out to gigabytes of information. It's a huge waste of resources, including "time to download."
Get out of the "how does this impact me as an individual" box. The EMail servers must spend some amount of time to download the spam. It is significant.
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That was a wonderful, nearly-incoherent post. I think I've got the gist of what you're saying, though, and I regret to inform you that you're wrong.
It isn't "really" another form of a company attempting to get your attention.
It *really* is a way for a company to force you to subsidize their marketing costs, whether you purchase the product or not.
In all other cases of advertising, you implicitly choose to suppose the costs of advertising when you choose to purchase the product.
About fifteen years ago, an exactly analogous situation existed: spam fax. In those days, faxes were thermafax: they used special paper that was bloody expensive.
Spam marketers had no problem using war-dialers to spread their marketing information to every fax machine they could. The costs to businesses were obvious, as their thermafax paper was rapidly consumed.
Unsolicited faxes were made illegal. It was decided that no business should be able to force others to pay for its advertising costs.
It's only because EMail costs are hidden, mainly unaccounted for and are new-tech, that the governments haven't stepped in to ban EMail spam.
The legal and moral issues have already been determined, by the previous spam-fax ban.
Your points re: porn advertising, AOL et al are irrelevent.
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Well of *course* they raise the cost of your AOL subscription. So what?
Coca Cola spends a fortune on marketing. If you purchase a Coke, you are implicitly choosing to pay Coke for its advertising.
If you choose to purchase a Pepsi, you are *not* paying for Coke's advertising. Coke's advertising costs are born only by Coke, and you have chosen to not support those costs.
Spam doesn't offer you that choice.
No matter which ISP you subscribe to, you will be paying for the advertising of several hundred spam-using companies.
You are *forced* to subsidize their marketing costs.
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I read the author's name as "Jeff Hantavirus." I almost passed over the story, when the name startled me and I had to go back and read more carefully.
I'm sure this amuses only me. Oh, well.
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Because, Santa, receiving AOL CDs doesn't cost you a penny, whereas receiving spam EMail does cost you.
"But I've never had to pay for it!" you cry.
Actually, you do. The Euro recipients know this right up front, because they get cold-cocked with per-second telephone access charges.
Americans *should* know it, if they'd only just think for a moment. They get higher ISP charges and/or go over their transfer limits because of the spam email.
Yes, yes. You only pay $35/month for your whizbang ADSL connection. But that $35/month *includes* the cost of spam. Your ISP is paying for the transfer, storage and processing of that spam EMail -- and you *know* that the costs are passed on to the consumer, with a few percent tacked on for good luck.
You pay for the spam, sure as god/dog made little green apples.
Ergo, no double standard.
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This won't happen.
As I ranted in [a previous post,] in the Digital TV copy restrictions article, Corporations are systematically creating an environment where people don't count.
Overly broad patents are one way of accomplishing this. It stifles what the public is independently allowed to do, let alone what other companies may do.
The entire point is to replace individual human rights with Corporate Rights.
As an example of this movement, consider air pollution. A law was passed in Canada banning the use of MBTA as a fuel additive. (MBTA is a replacement for lead, and has been found to be even less healthy than lead.) A US manufacturer of MBTA sued and won, claiming damage to business.
My right to breathe clean air is being challenged by that Corporation. If the penalty had been stiff enough, there's every chance my government would have folded like a house of cards and re-allowed use of MBTA in gasoline.
What a fucking joy *that* would be: I get to have cancer, because some bastard business in *another country* doesn't like *my* country's clean-air laws.
Gene patents are just an extension of this Corporate-First attitude. The patents reduce competition, by discouraging research into the claimed field. The result: drug prices remain high, Corporations make big bucks, and people suffer as fewer therapies, tests or cures are discovered, due to the reduced research for the patented gene.
And you know what? This whole Corporate Government/Corporate Rights/Corporate First trend is a helluva juggernaut, and not a one of us is in any position to stop it.
Somewhere in the Declaration of Independence is a line about "The public will endure suffering passively, until the suffering becomes insuffering, and they rise up in revolution."
Well, it ain't insufferable yet. Won't be for a good long time...
...and maybe by then, the 1984/Brave New World mindset will be so entrenched, that people won't even realize that it's insufferable. They'll continue to endure what we'd take up arms against, because they know no better.
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Bullshit.
The move is distinctly toward
(1) putting unique serial number hardware directly on the controller boards for all electronics;
(2) modifying the digital data stream to insert both (a) a copy protection bit ("original media" versus "first-gen copy") and (b) the serial number of the source output unit; and, finally,
(3) installing hardware-based copy protection that (a) disallows second-gen copies and (b) disallows playback of the copy on anything but the original source output unit.
The CPRM initiative for hard drives, the copy-protection bit on all CD/DAT/Minidisc/DVD/etc media, the DCMA act, the lawsuits against Napster, CSS, region-restricted playback of DVDs, ebook copy restrictions, software lease-oriented licensing... fuck, man, *EVERYTHING* points toward greater Corporate Control of what you can do with the media you purchase.
Your "little" sister of 16 is the tail end of the generation that gets to experience copy freedom.
It's the five-year olds of today that are going to be put over the barrel as adult labourers and consumers.
Your hopes for the legislature are cute, but unrealistic. All major world governments are controlled by corporate interests at this point: any signs of them operating for the public good are, at best, an illusion to pacify the masses. Especially in the USA, money speaks -- and you, my friend, simply don't have the bucks to buy yourself the legislation you want, while the MPAA and RIAA purchased themselves the DCMA with very few problems.
You think the Corporations of the world are going to just sit back and let teenagers steal their profits? Dream on.
[As an aside, does your sister freely give money over to the MPAA, to watch whatever fetid p.o.s. Adam Sandler "comedy" they're hawking to her? Does she freely give money to the RIAA, to purchase the latest prefabricated boy-toy p.o.s. glam-band "music" they're selling? *Someone* is, and if ain't her, it's one of her tasteless teeny-aged friends.
In your dreams is Napster piracy some sort of sign that teenagers ain't doing what Corporations want. Brittany didn't get her millions because teenagers rebelled. The teenagers have plenty of cash burning a hole in their pockets, and the Corporations, from GAP to Sony to MPAA have their number. Your sister is being played like a cheap fiddle, and she *loves* it.]
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The mass public is too apathetic to get off their soggy arses and demand that they receive better treatment. The hullabaloo you read on Slashdot is an extreme minority view (and even those who cry loudest will are too likely to do nothing).
The mass adult public will be disgruntled, but they'll accept it.
The *kids*, on the other hand, will grow up believing that the normal way of the world is for corporations to have ulimate control over everything.
This begins to sound like a paranoid statement, but I think there's a kernel of truth to it: Corporate America is making moves towards creating a society in which Corporate Government is the accepted norm, and in which citizens are, first and foremost, passive consumers of goods and, secondly, passive labourers in production of goods.
Indeed, it's like the old mining towns, reborn on a national scale. You work for the company and you spend your money at the company store, live in the company house and drive the company car.
We're condemning our kids.
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