Farming is an extremely high-tech business these days. Check out Trimble, the first site in a Google search for "farming GPS."
Farmers are using sophisticated soil-sampling quality testing, with GPS, to determine fertilizer spreads. The GPS is used to mark the sample location and generate a "map" of the field... and the GPS is used to control the mix of fertilizer *as* it is being spread.
GPS is also used for yield monitoring, during harvest: volume and moisture content. Why is one area more productive than another? The soil/fertilizer/weather/etc data is reviewed and analysed, and plans made to improve yield the following year.
Some farms use GPS with insect infestation data to perform variable crop spraying. The most sophisticated systems mix the pesticide on-the-wing: concentration dependent on infestation level.
How about variable-rate planting? Overcrowding is ruinous in poor-yielding sections. Plant fewer seeds there, and save money. Variable-depth tilling: monitor the hardpan depth and till only deep enough to crack it.
Variable-rate irrigation will make a fortune for its inventor, particularly in water-poor states like California.
And so on. The farming business is as high-tech as one's imagination... satellite imagery mapping out stressed crops, so one doesn't need to sample all 4000 acres to locate the infestations? Why not!
Idiots that want to grouse about health care -- and that'd be Canadian idiots thinking it's awful and expensive, or American idiots thinking the same -- need to check out Canada's Burning, which exposes the lies the media tells. Canada's healthcare is currently kicking righteous ass, despite its problems.
Ah, like DVD. Not intended to be viewed on Linux boxes.
Thanks, but I'll view the damn content any way that I please, be it screen, print or read aloud by my seeing-eye parrot. It's Jon's responsibility to ensure that when he uses others' words, they be clearly designated as such.
It is *NOT* incumbent on me, the reader, to click links madly to determine which words are his and which are others.
Completely and utterly plagarized. Hell, if I had the patience for your whiny bullshit excuse for your actions, I'd create a stand-alone website with the exact text from every Slashdot story you ever did, without any indication that you'd authored them. Sure, I'd toss in an URL
,
kind of like I did *just now*. Let the reader figure out who's words belong to whom.
Don't forget that you pay for your stuff with post-tax dollars.
It takes about 100 hours of labour to earn $600 post-tax dollars. That's two and a half weeks of full-time work.
And I'm not even bothering to factor in other paycheque incidentals, like insurance and workers comp and so on. Truth is, once all taxes and so-called "optional" debits are withdrawn from your paycheque, it's probably closer to 120 hours to earn $600 on an $8/hr wage...
I've been dying for Sony to get their shit in the same sack...
I want MiniDisc audio (home, car and portable), MiniDisc still photo (with audio annotation), MiniDisc 15s burst video (with audio recording), MiniDisc data backup.
I want my computer to be able to read all these formats. I want the video recorder to also be able to play back the video and audio. The audio players can remain audio-only players, with no need to record (I'll do the audio recording from my computer).
It'd give me a single portable media format that meets all my needs.
You want to know about DARE, just follow the money. Same thing with the "War on Drugs."
Who is profiting? There is a pile of money being spent on these initiatives, and it doesn't just evaporate: it ends up in someone's pockets.
Now, some of that money will go to innocuous end points: paying the paycheque for the cop that spends an hour in the school, paying the advertising agency that creates a poster, that sort of thing.
What you're looking for are people getting really rich off DARE and War Against Drugs.
Like, what's the "drug czar"'s paycheque? Betcha it's bloody big... and I betcha he really, really doesn't want to lose it.
How much are directors for DARE paid? Betcha it's good coin. Betcha they're highly motivated to continue DARE, regardless its efficacy.
Follow the money. If it all goes to legit purposes, then it's probably a legit organization.
If it's lining someone's pockets to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, then it's probably a scam...
"If my teenage kids hangs around a peer group that smokes pot, my kid is more likely to try a harder drug that if he *just* hangs around with a peer group that drinks alcohol."
Are you kidding?! BTW, interesting slip of the tongue there: "just" drinks alcohol, even though underage, eh? I wonder what kind of message he's received. Betcha it wasn't what you thought.
Anyway, point is, if he's hanging around potheads, he's chosen to hang around with people who have chosen a "soft" drug. They know pot isn't going to fuck 'em up.
If he's hanging around drinkers, he's chosen to hange around with "hard" drug people. They know alcohol is going to fuck 'em up if they drink too much.
If he's chosen to mess with liquor, he's chosen to belong to a peer group where a significant population will become aggressive and a significant population will become a real danger to themselves through (a) overdosing and (b) addiction.
If he's chosen to mess with pot, he's chosen to belong to a peer group that tends to get damn silly and really complacent. They're in no danger of overdosing, and they aren't getting physically addicted.
Put in those terms, choosing to hang with potheads sounds like the rational decision! I don't know that people who make rational decisions tend to choose highly addictive drugs...
Of course, a whole decision could involve why a person would chose to escape real life by getting smashed or stoned, and whether that can be a rational decision...
I *hate* saying that, but there needs to be some hard and fast rules for registrations.
The first rule is that.com is a global URL and can only be used by global companies -- that is, companies with their business name registered in multiple countries.
The second rule is that every other business must register by country code and subdomain (state/province). If you have a national company, you get the country code TLD. If your company is smaller, you have to prepend your province/state. This allows "Harry's Hamburgers" to be owned by two different companies, one in Saskatchewan and one in Ontario.
The third rule is that companies can only register.com,.cc and.sub.cc domains. Get them the hell out of every other TLD.
The fourth rule is that there are no other specified TLDs. Open the entire thing up: register whatever the hell you like.
The DNS farms can deal with lookup perfectly easily: monitor TLD usage and organize the databases to provide the fastest lookups for the most-used TLDs.
Let the system sort itself out. You register "billybobweb.aint.this.fun" and you can expect the DNS to take freaking forever finding out where the hell you are.
Register "www.billybob.home", though, and chances are that it'd be looked up pretty quick, 'cause every @home cable subscriber and his dog will be setting up.home sites...
I think that within a year, we'd have all pretty much settled down to a handful of common and *useful* domain descriptions, chosen by the users themselves.
And then bitchslap WICO upside the head. Ain't no one gonna confuse "www.coke.sex" with the cola product!
I'd run O2K because it's what my clients (I do technical writing) use.
But what I *really* want to run is Corel Ventura Publisher. It kicks ass up and down the street. Incredible control over layout, fantastic UI. It is, no word of a lie, the *only* truly professional long-document publishing software. Framemaker is a wimp by comparison.
But it's Windows only at this time. Still, it's worth all the heartache of Windows, just to be able to use Ventura.
I think I'm in love with an application. How sad is that?!
You mistake me. I've no problem with GNU licensing.
What I've a problem with is that RMS paints with a tarry black brush everyone who chooses to publish under other licenses.
He argues that these other licenses are morally bankrupt, and indicates that he believes it is morally right to share software freely. The implication is that he believes it is morally okay to copy restrictively-licensed software.
I don't think he comes out and says it, but it's difficult to not interpret him that way.
"Who will help me cut the wheat," asked Henny Penny.
"Not I," said Goosey Loosey. "Not I," said Ducky Lucky.
[repeat 6 times for the various stages of breadmaking]
"Who will help me eat the bread," asked Henny Penny.
"I will!" said Goosey Loosey. "I will!" said Ducky Lucky.
"Fuck you all," said Henny Penny. "You lazy little bastards didn't help me out one little bit. What the hell makes you so special that you get to leech off my labour?"
Why should I *NOT* have a monopoly? It's *my* idea, *my* time and labour that created it, and *YOU* did sweet F-A to assist.
Theft is theft. A crook is a crook.
Intellectual property *IS* physical property. Through a simple conversion -- one that you perhaps see as alchemy -- it is changed into money, which is exchanged for food, clothing, shelter and other essentials for living.
When you steal my intellectual property, you steal my loaf of bread.
And *that* is fundamentally wrong. You want to share my loaf of bread, then you better be prepared to help make it. Either you participate in its creation, or you exchange *your* food money for *my* food.
RMS does view software in a moral and principled manner.
And so do others. Just because they don't agree does not mean that they aren't moral and principled.
For instance, it is "moral and principled" to believe that when one benefits by another's work, that person should be compensated. A "no free ride" sort of philosophy. An anti-theft morality, in fact.
RMS sees things from a "theft of own freedom" perspective.
Many others see things from a "theft of others' work" perspective.
Sharing someone's software work is theft. Sure, it's possible to frame in terms that make it seem not like theft: that it costs nothing to distribute and nothing to allow others to change the code and nothing to let others use the code in ways you hadn't intended.
But that ignores that there is a cost to creation: the time, equipment used during programming, the cost of training in learning to program, etc.
It is, I think, dishonest of RMS to trivialize intellectual property rights, and the right of people to capitalize on their intellectual creations.
You're as guilty as others: you criticise and condemn them for having a moral structure that's different from yours... the same accusation you criticise them for!
Over the past five years, I've researched, developed and tested a power-saving device that will cut your electrical usage by half.
I wish to have a monopoly right to build and sell this product.
You seem to feel that it would be just and right for you to steal my technology and go into competition against me. Perhaps even giving it away, instead of selling it.
That is despicable. It was *my* labour of intellect that discovered and refined this product.
Yet you'd benefit without compensating me for the intellectual work I put into it.
You scum!
I've decided that because of theives like you, I ain't gonna release this power-saving knowledge. You can continue to suck electricity at an atrocious rate, and you can continue to contribute to the problems caused by generation plants.
There's none of this wishy-washy stuff with Singapore. You do the crime, you pay the time, no ifs, ands or buts.
You don't get caught with an ounce of weed and then get off easy because "you're the Senator's son," while some other dude ends up locked up for life for *the same offense.*
And there's none of this pussy piddly fine stuff, either. In my town, it's $3 if I get caught with an expired meter. It's *cheaper* for me to ignore the meter and pay the occasional fine than to follow the law.
In Singapore, I'd probably lose my car entirely. You bet your life I'd be plugging that freaking meter!
**CONSISTENT** consequences that are cost **MORE** to ignore than to follow and the *GUTS* to enfore them -- that's the key to success!
While we're on this diamond subject, I'll mention that diamonds have been discovered in Canada's arctic. Look for "Dia-Met" on the web.
They're one of the exceedingly few diamond mining companies that aren't controlled by DeBeers. And boy, is DeBeers pissed...
Anyway, point is, if you're looking to buy a diamond, you might enquire about getting a North American diamond. It's a bit more unique than the others.
Better yet, go with a simple gold band sans stone, and donate the money you saved by buying a goat for a third-world kid: http://catalog.heifer.org/goat.cfm
(this organization has phenomenally low administration costs: most of the money you donate actually does go to the people you're gifting, instead of lining the CEO's pockets!)
The Psion 5mx gets a *FULL MONTH* off two AA batteries. And runs Office-compatible software.
Now to be sure, there are some deficiencies when looking at the Psion: relatively low-res, grey-scale LCD, and limited software selection. But it satisfies for about 90% of typical laptop use: wordprocessing, daytimer, calculator, web browser.
I'd like to see something that strikes in the middle: about a week on a full charge and a high resolution grey-scale screen, and more apps.
...with its ban on chewing gum, etcetera. And the caning of that little bastard who was damaging cars.
Huge restrictions on what you can do, when you live in Singapore.
But on the other hand, you can walk the streets safely at any time of night, and you don't worry about people breaking into your car and stealing the stereo.
It's a trade-off, just as with all things in life.
When you allow a lot of freedoms, you also allow a lot of assholes to infringe on your own freedom.
Let some jerk chew gum, and you just *know* he's going to stick it on the seat of the bus when he gets up to leave, just as you're about to sit down on it.
Ban the gum, and you don't have to worry about it.
But, then, you don't get to chew gum, either.
Trade-offs and balances, costs and consequences...
Slashdot Mirror
Farming is an extremely high-tech business these days. Check out Trimble, the first site in a Google search for "farming GPS."
Farmers are using sophisticated soil-sampling quality testing, with GPS, to determine fertilizer spreads. The GPS is used to mark the sample location and generate a "map" of the field... and the GPS is used to control the mix of fertilizer *as* it is being spread.
GPS is also used for yield monitoring, during harvest: volume and moisture content. Why is one area more productive than another? The soil/fertilizer/weather/etc data is reviewed and analysed, and plans made to improve yield the following year.
Some farms use GPS with insect infestation data to perform variable crop spraying. The most sophisticated systems mix the pesticide on-the-wing: concentration dependent on infestation level.
How about variable-rate planting? Overcrowding is ruinous in poor-yielding sections. Plant fewer seeds there, and save money. Variable-depth tilling: monitor the hardpan depth and till only deep enough to crack it.
Variable-rate irrigation will make a fortune for its inventor, particularly in water-poor states like California.
And so on. The farming business is as high-tech as one's imagination... satellite imagery mapping out stressed crops, so one doesn't need to sample all 4000 acres to locate the infestations? Why not!
--
Alberta does have a sales tax, it's just hidden.
Idiots that want to grouse about health care -- and that'd be Canadian idiots thinking it's awful and expensive, or American idiots thinking the same -- need to check out Canada's Burning, which exposes the lies the media tells. Canada's healthcare is currently kicking righteous ass, despite its problems.
--
*Intended to be viewed*?!?
Ah, like DVD. Not intended to be viewed on Linux boxes.
Thanks, but I'll view the damn content any way that I please, be it screen, print or read aloud by my seeing-eye parrot. It's Jon's responsibility to ensure that when he uses others' words, they be clearly designated as such.
It is *NOT* incumbent on me, the reader, to click links madly to determine which words are his and which are others.
--
Buddy, I *PRINTED OUT* the article to read on the bus on the way to work.
The source sure as heck was disguised from *my* eyes as I read it.
Calling it a faux pas wouldn't prevent me from being kicked out of university. Intent or not, they're downright *fierce* about it.
If it wasn't plagiarism, then it was so close as to being plagiarism as to be indistinguishable from it.
--
Here, try this on for size: Interesting lecture from an anonymous poster accusing someone (falsely) of a serious offense. The source story was linked in its entirety in the intro. It's an odd kind of plagiarism that links to the source material. Also, some info in the piece didn't come from the paper. There are two phrases I should have quoted, mostly knowing that there are people like User 240151 out there. Obviously, I didn't think people wouldn't notice or I wouldn't have linked it. I always attribute qnd quite scrupulously. In this case, I even linked to the whole story. But I will certainly be even more scrupulous in the future, knowing there are lots of people like this out there.
Completely and utterly plagarized. Hell, if I had the patience for your whiny bullshit excuse for your actions, I'd create a stand-alone website with the exact text from every Slashdot story you ever did, without any indication that you'd authored them. Sure, I'd toss in an URL
- ,
kind of like I did *just now*. Let the reader figure out who's words belong to whom.--
Don't forget that you pay for your stuff with post-tax dollars.
It takes about 100 hours of labour to earn $600 post-tax dollars. That's two and a half weeks of full-time work.
And I'm not even bothering to factor in other paycheque incidentals, like insurance and workers comp and so on. Truth is, once all taxes and so-called "optional" debits are withdrawn from your paycheque, it's probably closer to 120 hours to earn $600 on an $8/hr wage...
--
If he's drinking, where's he getting his alcohol? Are they buying it from, etcetera, yadda.
Same scenario, I'm afraid. The kid is breaking the law, be it alcohol or pot.
--
I've been dying for Sony to get their shit in the same sack...
I want MiniDisc audio (home, car and portable), MiniDisc still photo (with audio annotation), MiniDisc 15s burst video (with audio recording), MiniDisc data backup.
I want my computer to be able to read all these formats. I want the video recorder to also be able to play back the video and audio. The audio players can remain audio-only players, with no need to record (I'll do the audio recording from my computer).
It'd give me a single portable media format that meets all my needs.
--
You want to know about DARE, just follow the money. Same thing with the "War on Drugs."
Who is profiting? There is a pile of money being spent on these initiatives, and it doesn't just evaporate: it ends up in someone's pockets.
Now, some of that money will go to innocuous end points: paying the paycheque for the cop that spends an hour in the school, paying the advertising agency that creates a poster, that sort of thing.
What you're looking for are people getting really rich off DARE and War Against Drugs.
Like, what's the "drug czar"'s paycheque? Betcha it's bloody big... and I betcha he really, really doesn't want to lose it.
How much are directors for DARE paid? Betcha it's good coin. Betcha they're highly motivated to continue DARE, regardless its efficacy.
Follow the money. If it all goes to legit purposes, then it's probably a legit organization.
If it's lining someone's pockets to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, then it's probably a scam...
--
"If my teenage kids hangs around a peer group that smokes pot, my kid is more likely to try a harder drug that if he *just* hangs around with a peer group that drinks alcohol."
Are you kidding?! BTW, interesting slip of the tongue there: "just" drinks alcohol, even though underage, eh? I wonder what kind of message he's received. Betcha it wasn't what you thought.
Anyway, point is, if he's hanging around potheads, he's chosen to hang around with people who have chosen a "soft" drug. They know pot isn't going to fuck 'em up.
If he's hanging around drinkers, he's chosen to hange around with "hard" drug people. They know alcohol is going to fuck 'em up if they drink too much.
If he's chosen to mess with liquor, he's chosen to belong to a peer group where a significant population will become aggressive and a significant population will become a real danger to themselves through (a) overdosing and (b) addiction.
If he's chosen to mess with pot, he's chosen to belong to a peer group that tends to get damn silly and really complacent. They're in no danger of overdosing, and they aren't getting physically addicted.
Put in those terms, choosing to hang with potheads sounds like the rational decision! I don't know that people who make rational decisions tend to choose highly addictive drugs...
Of course, a whole decision could involve why a person would chose to escape real life by getting smashed or stoned, and whether that can be a rational decision...
--
Hey, Dudes, check this out! This is M$ Office Source Code!
"for (i = 0; i size; ++i)"
OH NO!
--
I *hate* saying that, but there needs to be some hard and fast rules for registrations.
.com is a global URL and can only be used by global companies -- that is, companies with their business name registered in multiple countries.
.com, .cc and .sub.cc domains. Get them the hell out of every other TLD.
.home sites...
The first rule is that
The second rule is that every other business must register by country code and subdomain (state/province). If you have a national company, you get the country code TLD. If your company is smaller, you have to prepend your province/state. This allows "Harry's Hamburgers" to be owned by two different companies, one in Saskatchewan and one in Ontario.
The third rule is that companies can only register
The fourth rule is that there are no other specified TLDs. Open the entire thing up: register whatever the hell you like.
The DNS farms can deal with lookup perfectly easily: monitor TLD usage and organize the databases to provide the fastest lookups for the most-used TLDs.
Let the system sort itself out. You register "billybobweb.aint.this.fun" and you can expect the DNS to take freaking forever finding out where the hell you are.
Register "www.billybob.home", though, and chances are that it'd be looked up pretty quick, 'cause every @home cable subscriber and his dog will be setting up
I think that within a year, we'd have all pretty much settled down to a handful of common and *useful* domain descriptions, chosen by the users themselves.
And then bitchslap WICO upside the head. Ain't no one gonna confuse "www.coke.sex" with the cola product!
--
I'd run O2K because it's what my clients (I do technical writing) use.
But what I *really* want to run is Corel Ventura Publisher. It kicks ass up and down the street. Incredible control over layout, fantastic UI. It is, no word of a lie, the *only* truly professional long-document publishing software. Framemaker is a wimp by comparison.
But it's Windows only at this time. Still, it's worth all the heartache of Windows, just to be able to use Ventura.
I think I'm in love with an application. How sad is that?!
--
You mistake me. I've no problem with GNU licensing.
What I've a problem with is that RMS paints with a tarry black brush everyone who chooses to publish under other licenses.
He argues that these other licenses are morally bankrupt, and indicates that he believes it is morally right to share software freely. The implication is that he believes it is morally okay to copy restrictively-licensed software.
I don't think he comes out and says it, but it's difficult to not interpret him that way.
--
"Who will help me cut the wheat," asked Henny Penny.
"Not I," said Goosey Loosey. "Not I," said Ducky Lucky.
[repeat 6 times for the various stages of breadmaking]
"Who will help me eat the bread," asked Henny Penny.
"I will!" said Goosey Loosey. "I will!" said Ducky Lucky.
"Fuck you all," said Henny Penny. "You lazy little bastards didn't help me out one little bit. What the hell makes you so special that you get to leech off my labour?"
Why should I *NOT* have a monopoly? It's *my* idea, *my* time and labour that created it, and *YOU* did sweet F-A to assist.
Theft is theft. A crook is a crook.
Intellectual property *IS* physical property. Through a simple conversion -- one that you perhaps see as alchemy -- it is changed into money, which is exchanged for food, clothing, shelter and other essentials for living.
When you steal my intellectual property, you steal my loaf of bread.
And *that* is fundamentally wrong. You want to share my loaf of bread, then you better be prepared to help make it. Either you participate in its creation, or you exchange *your* food money for *my* food.
--
Sony makes its money on the licenses. It *LOSES* money on the sale of its machines.
Free development would either:
(a) bankrupt Sony.
(b) send the costs of the console through the roof.
--
RMS does view software in a moral and principled manner.
And so do others. Just because they don't agree does not mean that they aren't moral and principled.
For instance, it is "moral and principled" to believe that when one benefits by another's work, that person should be compensated. A "no free ride" sort of philosophy. An anti-theft morality, in fact.
RMS sees things from a "theft of own freedom" perspective.
Many others see things from a "theft of others' work" perspective.
Sharing someone's software work is theft. Sure, it's possible to frame in terms that make it seem not like theft: that it costs nothing to distribute and nothing to allow others to change the code and nothing to let others use the code in ways you hadn't intended.
But that ignores that there is a cost to creation: the time, equipment used during programming, the cost of training in learning to program, etc.
It is, I think, dishonest of RMS to trivialize intellectual property rights, and the right of people to capitalize on their intellectual creations.
You're as guilty as others: you criticise and condemn them for having a moral structure that's different from yours... the same accusation you criticise them for!
--
Over the past five years, I've researched, developed and tested a power-saving device that will cut your electrical usage by half.
I wish to have a monopoly right to build and sell this product.
You seem to feel that it would be just and right for you to steal my technology and go into competition against me. Perhaps even giving it away, instead of selling it.
That is despicable. It was *my* labour of intellect that discovered and refined this product.
Yet you'd benefit without compensating me for the intellectual work I put into it.
You scum!
I've decided that because of theives like you, I ain't gonna release this power-saving knowledge. You can continue to suck electricity at an atrocious rate, and you can continue to contribute to the problems caused by generation plants.
If I can't benefit, ain't no one gonna benefit!
--
Fair, unilateral, and dead serious.
There's none of this wishy-washy stuff with Singapore. You do the crime, you pay the time, no ifs, ands or buts.
You don't get caught with an ounce of weed and then get off easy because "you're the Senator's son," while some other dude ends up locked up for life for *the same offense.*
And there's none of this pussy piddly fine stuff, either. In my town, it's $3 if I get caught with an expired meter. It's *cheaper* for me to ignore the meter and pay the occasional fine than to follow the law.
In Singapore, I'd probably lose my car entirely. You bet your life I'd be plugging that freaking meter!
**CONSISTENT** consequences that are cost **MORE** to ignore than to follow and the *GUTS* to enfore them -- that's the key to success!
--
"Into Thin Air" and "The Climb" both, IIRC, described some pretty filthy base camps.
Perhaps things have made a significant change for the better in the past half-decade.
--
While we're on this diamond subject, I'll mention that diamonds have been discovered in Canada's arctic. Look for "Dia-Met" on the web.
They're one of the exceedingly few diamond mining companies that aren't controlled by DeBeers. And boy, is DeBeers pissed...
Anyway, point is, if you're looking to buy a diamond, you might enquire about getting a North American diamond. It's a bit more unique than the others.
Better yet, go with a simple gold band sans stone, and donate the money you saved by buying a goat for a third-world kid: http://catalog.heifer.org/goat.cfm
(this organization has phenomenally low administration costs: most of the money you donate actually does go to the people you're gifting, instead of lining the CEO's pockets!)
--
A bloody three-hour battery life.
That alone takes it out of the running.
The Psion 5mx gets a *FULL MONTH* off two AA batteries. And runs Office-compatible software.
Now to be sure, there are some deficiencies when looking at the Psion: relatively low-res, grey-scale LCD, and limited software selection. But it satisfies for about 90% of typical laptop use: wordprocessing, daytimer, calculator, web browser.
I'd like to see something that strikes in the middle: about a week on a full charge and a high resolution grey-scale screen, and more apps.
That'd make for a really great laptop.
--
...with its ban on chewing gum, etcetera. And the caning of that little bastard who was damaging cars.
Huge restrictions on what you can do, when you live in Singapore.
But on the other hand, you can walk the streets safely at any time of night, and you don't worry about people breaking into your car and stealing the stereo.
It's a trade-off, just as with all things in life.
When you allow a lot of freedoms, you also allow a lot of assholes to infringe on your own freedom.
Let some jerk chew gum, and you just *know* he's going to stick it on the seat of the bus when he gets up to leave, just as you're about to sit down on it.
Ban the gum, and you don't have to worry about it.
But, then, you don't get to chew gum, either.
Trade-offs and balances, costs and consequences...
--
No, the trash is as bad as he makes it sound.
The base camps are filthy: litter and human feces. It's freaking disgusting.
If things are cleaner, it is only because there has been a strong effort over the past five years to clean up the mess of the previous thirty.
--
Heh. Have you ever looked at the HTML source for Slashdot? Dog's breakfast, it is. Miracle that *any* browser can display it!
:)
--