The thing you need to know about those sticks is that they are *really* prone to overload and various nasty IM-like failure modes. Fun, you bet, but you kinda get what you pay for there. If you want them to work well, you'll spend ten times the effort on filters in between the antenna system and the unit in most install situations. In a really rural area you could get away with it, as everything is (relatively) weak then.
Best one out there right now is about $200 US, it's the FUNcube pro+ dongle. That's near-0 through about 2 GHZ, so you get LF through L band, IIRC. Still has some overload issues (not awful, but not what you'd really want, either), but for two hundred bucks, ya can't beat it.
-- Not associated with the FUNcube folks either, other than my (free) SdrDx software supports it.
SDR-IQ (about $500 from RFSPACE or a store) and my SdrDx software (free) -- Windows and Mac versions. 14 bit decoding, USB connection to the computer, ethernet server software (free) available so you can remote the head unit.
192 kHz bw coverage from a few Hz to 30 Mhz: AM, SAM, FM, USB, LSB, CW... output to (free) decoding for SSTV, WEFAX, RTTY, Olivia, Contestia, Domino, Heil, DREAM (digital SW broadcasts), MFSK, MT63, PSK, QPSK, PSKR, THOR, THROB, NAVTEX/SITORB... pretty much you name it.
Band markings, channel and freq ID database, auto SW station ID, point and click brick wall envelope control, multiple notch filters, TDM filtering, multioctave 50/60 hz filters, memories and memory markers, DSP noise and impulse processing, wideband recording (192 khz at a time) and playback, LPF, HPF, compatible (on the mac) with Audio Hijack Pro and Soundflower for even more audio processing goodness...
External tuning knob support, midi control surface support (to remap real knobs and buttons to other controls like volume, RF gain, squelch, blanker settings, passband edges, tuning by steps, etc.), remote antenna tuning support, remote radio control support (TCP/IP, includes example Python clients.)
SDR makes analog radio look like some very un-serious stuff. I'm listening to some hams on 3870 kHz now.
-- not associated with RFSPACE. I just write code.:)
Nope. Lousy programmers strike again. There's nothing at all wrong with c-strings. There is, however, a sufficiency of lousy programmers who lack the skill to handle perfectly simple data structures. Seriously, if you can't handle a zero terminated string or keep from overrunning an array, it's not the string format that's the problem. It's you.
Assuming the problem here is a string problem may be jumping the gun, too. Could just as easily be something else.
Someone oughta port -- not update, just port -- Mechassault I to a new machine, and then reopen the online gameplay. Those were the days, all right. Big pixels... sure. But the gameplay, OMG the gameplay.
Help me out here. Why don't you just keep the existing system for when you want to play the existing games?
I have an XBox, XBox 360, PS3, and a Wii on the system. The pre/pro is at its max number of inputs (six HDMI, three component, I don't use composite except for the security system), so it's becoming an issue of what to take off if I add something new. Rewiring the thing every time the kids (or grandkids, or I, or my lady) change games... not an option. It has to be easy to switch and it has to fit into my input arrangements. Without external switch boxes (component switches suck, and HDMI switches, at least so far, have been unreliable and difficult to integrate.) I have Gamecube, PS2 and PS1 systems stored, but they're not likely to come back out because of my input shortage anyway. The other six inputs all have "stuff" on them that isn't coming off either.
And how often do you really play ALL of those old games? I mean, are there a couple that you like and play frequently or do you really rotate through everything on a regular basis?
Well, I've just a few real favorites myself -- race games, Maximo, Mechassault -- but my lady has several exercise ones she likes, and the (3 adult) boys have their favorites, typically shooters, and the grandkids like completely different stuff. Crash bandicoot, etc. I'd say overall there are probably 20 from the older consoles that are in regular play around here, plus several from the ps3/360/wii generation. (Silly Wii bowling and such might never die at my house. Kinect was a complete flop here because it's blinded by the projection system.) There are some decent 360 games, as a musician I particularly enjoy guitar hero type stuff, but none that have hooked me the way the original maximo, mechassault and project gotham did. Gameplay, gameplay, gameplay. Mechassault II is playable, but without the online play of vI, it's really just a shadow of the first one. PS3... still waiting for something really worthy there other than (more) guitar hero and LEGO games. Though it's a good bluray player, always up to date, etc.
I try -- hard -- to keep everything as playable as I can for everybody, and I'd just as soon not buy a machine if it's only going to work for one generation of media. Buying replacements on EBay is inevitably a crapshoot.
As far as playing them all goes... no. But I think that after choking up $50 for a game, if one of the kids wants to try it, they should be able to. Across the family, we definitely don't prefer the same kinds of games, so what I hated, they might love. So I'm *really* reluctant to give up on a game because some megacorp wanted to shave $10 off the hardware price. If I don't buy the new console, I don't spend money on the games, and so I don't buy into further erosion of my game library; and my old stuff keeps on cooking. For me, it's not about having the latest. It's about accumulating a broad entertainment capacity. Oh, and also... older games can now be had, used, at much lower cost. That's very appealing. $50 a pop adds right the heck up.
As far as setting up separate, stand-alone systems goes, I sorta dug myself a hole there, didn't really see it coming, though it's obvious now. The main system is big audio, big screen (really big.) Now no one wants to play on a "little tv", lol.
Just speaking for myself here. Everyone's milage varies with this stuff.
My concern is primarily compatibility. We've got a good sized collection of games -- far more dollars invested there than in the consoles -- and if the new hotness won't play them, it's not coming to my shelves.
Not sure how to deal with the lies: XBox 360 claimed they would implement compatibility via downloads; then they didn't produce the downloads for the best games (the Mechassault series for one example.)
Then there is "the cheapening": The PS3 (original) came with PS2 hardware, and that really worked pretty well. Then they took that out. Which doesn't work for me, but I do have the original version. Sadly, only replaceable via EBay now because the newer PS3's stripped that out.
So PS4, XBoxXXX... going to wait and see if they obsolete my game library, and if they do, pffft. If they don't, will wait at least a little and see if the compatibility is decent.
Nah, he's probably arguing that safe products should be exempt from sensibly constructed rules. As opposed to blanket rules that are so wide-ranging as to cause pointless changes (which, despite your assertion, tend to be expensive, screw up inventory chains, and often don't impact consumers anyway) for no actual reason. You know, as if common sense were in effect during rule making instead of lazy, stupid hand-waving by morons.
Something like, "In a product configuration where consumers could be injured by fan blades in normal use without such modification, the following safety precautions must be added to the design:"
Then, no inspectors required, if a product does not comply, a complaint could be lodged (if anyone cared, doubtful, but hey) and the manufacturer required to comply within the legal system. Or, no one would complain, and the "rule" would be forgotten as one of the millions of useless, masturbatory spurts legislators tend to product because, for some reason, the entire world seems to keep electing idiots, and they keep constructing bureaucracies out of more idiots. And products where no risk exist, like the Mac Pro, would be exempt (and immune from legal action) simply because there is no risk in normal use -- which with a computer box is open for updates, or closed for normal operation.
I can't speak for the EU, but here in the US, bureaucracies are terrible things, on the best of days just impeding progress, but often doing far worse, upping costs for no reason, shepherding resources to corporations and away from the people, specifying things like toilet distance from the wall, the number of windows in a house... it's a bloody nightmare. I own a recent Mac Pro, and I can tell you that getting yourself injured by the fan would take an act of stupidity so gross as to basically guarantee you couldn't operate a computer anyway.
Also, when you say a rule isn't expensive to abide by, the problem is that when you add all the rules together, all those little expenses become one big expense. So keeping them from proliferating is a good idea. Which, again, not really something you find in government. Good ideas, that is.
Well, actually, another alternative is for motherboard manufacturers to continue to make motherboards that boot the same way as they have for some time. So older, fully functional operating systems can continue to boot.
Of course, this would allow us to continue to use those fully functional OSs, and remove a goodly portion of the incentive to upgrade... so one might, if one were cynical, imagine that there is a corporate motive at work here.
Well, I have researched it, and the intent, as laid out in the milita act of 1792, was that everone had at a minimum adequate armament so that when they showed up, they'd be useful and not a load. However, citizens that brought cannon, frigate, and so forth were not only welcomed, they were often promoted just on that basis; ships issued authorization to act for the government, and so on. They were very into the citizens bringing effective arms of all kinds.
And you know why that was? Because there was no army, no navy, no nothing. So were they to restrict the arms the citizens had, they would have been restricting the arms the nation had.
When they said arms, they did indeed mean arms. Trying to make "arms" read as "muskets and swords" is either grievously misguided, or intentionally disingenuous.
Although it's worth noting that today, were you to appear in public in many places with a sword on your belt or a musket on your shoulder, you'd soon find that even your minimalist interpretation has been overrun by legislative and judicial sophists.
No, I'm afraid we're not. Now now (we presently have a fiat corporate oligarchy, by all signs), and not when we were closer to what the constitution enabled, which is a constitutional republic. If you'll recall the pledge: "...to the republic, for which it stands..." Battle Hymn of the Republic... those are just a few of the (many) signs that serve as a reminder. Our federal government is configured as a straight-up constitutional republic. The word "democracy" appears nowhere in the constitution. The word Republic, however, does.
Moreover, for the states, from the constitution:
Section 4 - Republican government
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
Sorry, it's not a democracy, and it was never intended to be. That's just an emotionally loaded trigger word pushed by the media. Democracy, as the fella said, is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. Doesn't work.
To claim that we're a democracy because a fraction of the selection process is democratic... that's disingenuous. The system, the whole shebang, as it were, is laid out in the constitution as a republic, top to bottom.
one, the full second amendment includes a bit about a militia.
Yes. This is a benefit gained by forbidding the government from infringing; that fighting citizens can be consistently prepared to be called up. That's what militia and well-regulated mean. None of which changes the instruction to the government, which forbids it from infringing on our already existing right to keep and carry arms.
Two, we're already restricting what arms can be carried.
That bad law is extant does not justify its existence. We had law that created and supported slavery. Would you then claim that because such law existed, that's the way things should be? You see the glaring logical flaw in claiming that because "we're already doing it", "it's right"? The fact is, it's right if it's right, and otherwise, it's wrong.
Three, licensing is not the same thing as a ban. Yes, it is a restriction
It's an infringement; such a strong one, in fact, that it completely obviates the right to keep and carry arms; the government is explicitly enjoined from making any such legislation. It's wrong. From start to finish. Barring amendment of the 2nd to change it fairly radically, licensing is utterly unlawful, specifically because the constitution says so.
Man, I know you're one of the more level-headed posters here.
Why, thank you, sir.:) [does a little jig]
If you're going down the rabbit hole of selectively quoting the constitution, ignoring commonly-accepted precedent and basic logic, I'm not sure if there's any hope for any sort of reasoned debate anymore.
I assure you, I am not. I will debate any point you like in this particular argument, and I will do so as honestly as I can. I try to keep my responses cogent and aimed at the subject brought up; I do not leave out the explicatory phrase from my shorter arguments in order to hide anything, but rather because it is not an instruction to government, while the final phrase is most definitely nothing else but. I am perfectly ready to talk about the explicatory phrase as well, should that really concern you. And in that regard...
May I respectfully point you to a fuller exposition on the matter of mine? You'll find it here.
you site(sic) the second amendment then add attributes to it that were clearly not written into it. It only says arms, if we can just add our own attributes too it then i guess you believe that we can own nuclear weapons on an individual basis and i believe you should only be able to have pistols and muskets.
The argument goes: the 2nd amendment mentions our right to keep and carry arms. We start with this right, directly out of the gate. The 2nd then enjoins (forbids) the federal government from infringing on that right. Nuclear weapons are arms. Therefore, yes, the federal government is not authorized to tell us, right now, that we can't keep and carry nuclear arms.
However: The constitution contains a wonderful section, entitled "Amendment"; this allows the government to make changes with the consent of the people. That's how the constitution was designed to evolve and change. Way, way back in the 1940's, right after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when we, the public, learned of these weapons, the US government could have (and I would argue, should have) crafted an amendment to the constitution that said, as an addendum to the 2nd, "...except for nuclear-effect, biological-effect, and chemical-effect weapons." The odds of such a thing passing would, I think, have been near 100%. And at the time, proliferation wasn't a risk, either. So there was every reason to do it right. And that's exactly the right course of action; that, or something similar, I'm not saying my wording is perfect, just the idea of it is.
But... they didn't do that. Instead, they made fiat law; law that has no authorizing basis in the constitution. They were wrong. They should fix that. ASAP. Not because I'm thinking honest patriots will want nukes (or miscreants could afford them); but because the feds need to be operating under the constitution, not outside it.
Now, as to your assertion that arms implies "muskets and pistols." At the time the constitution was written, well known arms consisted of all manner of pistols, rifles, muskets, cannons, explosive and solid cannonballs, cannonballs filled with shards, frigates with multiple decks of cannon, wagons with explosives and multiple guns rigged to fire in unison, chain shot, flaming missiles soaked with pitch and other inflammable, easily spread and hard to extinguish compounds, swords, knives, bayonets, fighting canes, toxins and active biologicals, brass knuckles, battering rams, catapults, siege towers, glass bottles, garrotes, whips, chains, both fused and mechanically triggered explosives, striking weapons like sticks and poles and quarterstaffs and maces and war-hammers, spears, bows, axes, arrows and crossbows... I could go on for quite some time. All of these things were in common use in warfare and self-defense at the time. Yet, knowing all these things, all they put in the 2nd amendment was “arms.” So clearly, that’s what they meant. Arms of any kind. They didn’t say “muskets and pistols.” They said arms.
They were also well aware that arms sophistication and types were multiplying almost daily; they'd just been in war, and they took advantage of those developments regularly. And they still just said arms; not "arms of the current day", but just arms.
It's also worth noting that swords were very much weapons of the day. Where, pray tell, did the government get its authorization to forbid swords (and knives, and staffs, and sword-canes, etc.) from if your argument for "arms of the day" (brought as "pistols and muskets) is valid? Surely you can see that the laws are being made arbitrarily and counter to the constitution no matter if the "correct" interpretation is "of the day" (even though that's stated nowhere) or "arms" (which is actually what it says.)
And remember, article 5 (amendment) was in there all along, so they knew that if something really needed changing, it could be changed. The fault here lies with our modern government,
The Court has spoken on this issue and it doesn't care what you personally think.
The court has no authorization to speak on this issue. No such authorization is present in the constitution.
The fact that the court awarded itself such an extra-constitutional authorization ought to be the source of great concern to everyone -- as a criminal act -- rather than the basis for your contention that the court is the final arbiter of everything and that the constitution no longer matters.
The base argument is: the court is corrupt. When you respond with "but the court says", you are not responding to the charge, and therefore your defense is empty. Numerous ways that demonstrate the court is corrupt have been brought to the discussion. Ex post facto laws (corrupt even by it's own definitions), inversion of the commerce clause, predation upon the bill of rights; you cannot defend those accusations by saying "the court says", you have to approach it from the angle of "what the court said is right because..." and then avoid quoting the court saying everything is ok, just go to sleep now -- the reasoning has to come from the constitution, because that is where the court gets its authority.
An argument about/on what the "judicial power" as stated in the constitution means would be appropriate. An argument that quotes Scalia is less than worthless.
As regards what we, the citizens think, yes, the fact that you assert the court does not care is patently obvious. The concern the court ought to have is that as it tramples on our rights, it causes real harm, and people often react in very extreme ways when they are harmed, particularly if they determine that the harm was entirely undeserved. Compounded by a corrupt and sophist legal system that blocks and prevents redress, while constantly increasing pressure, the situation is unstable and may even be dangerous.
You haven't been paying attention in history class. Nor to the things like the shooting of a prosecutor in Texas.
I've been paying attention. From what I've been able to learn thus far, it seems that that particular shooting was the result of a drug-related issue. It may not have been; it could easily also have been the results of blowback against prosecutors who overload charges in order to force plea bargains; untrue charges that the prosecutor would not back down on, people responding to the unfair punishment of an innocent person, and so on. We don't really know yet. Given the circumstances, it seems to have been an attempt to send a message of "don't fuck with us", or, "you fucked with us, but never again."
Now, if it was drug war related, that's entirely on the government's plate as far as responsibility goes. They never had the right to make drugs illegal (why did prohibition of alcohol require a constitutional amendment, but not marijuana and friends?) and even if you do think they had that right, the lesson of prohibition one was plain: Do so, and you create powerful extra-legal entities to fulfill the need you just locked out of permitted commerce. So the government created the situation in the first place. Because, I might add, it was being stupid.
Now, if it wasn't drug related, then perhaps it was one of the (very, very many) instances of prosecutorial malfeasance that someone had had enough of. I have seen the human wreckage caused by overeager prosecutions, unfair jailings, the classing that occurs once one has been deemed a "felon", even no more than the financial toll the legal system takes as if it were due. I'm only surprised that reactions such as this aren't more common, given how deeply and pervasively corrupt the legal system is.
Or, perhaps, just perhaps (but not very likely) it was something else. Maybe just the thrill of killing a prosecutor. I don't know.
But let's not fall off a cliff giving reams of sympathy to the prosecutor until we know what happened. It may be this is a very good example of why the people should be armed, and when the system refuses to respond to their legitimate needs and rights, that measures need to be taken. If the system is broken, those measures may well land outside the system. And we know the system in broken.
When the system doesn't work, and attempts to correct it meet with stone-walled resistance, what recourse do the people have? Should they suffer? Or should they act?
I can only hope that you consider democracy important enough to not just impose your opinion on others by just shooting them.
Just a reminder: This is (supposed to be) a constitutional republic, not a democracy. That means you elect representatives, and they decide what's what, but that those decisions are supposed to be subject to limits defined by the constitution they swear an oath to. We were never intended to be a democracy. What we are today seems to be an unauthorized, fiat corporate oligarchy; we've never been a democracy, though.
Fucking shit, people. Do not cite a case if you didn't actually read it.
Ok. First, I'm not "citing a case." I'm citing the constitution. Further, I'm going entirely with the proposition that the judiciary and the legislature has violated the constitution with sophist garbage.
Next: The 2nd amendment says "arms." It means arms. It doesn't say "arms except for...", no, it says "arms." So every case that tries to say, or imply, that it says anything other than "arms" is a steaming crock of fecal matter.
Next: The authors of the constitution were well aware that the future brings change; they provided article five (amendment) to make sure that such changes could be incorporated, with the broad consent of the people. Given that they did so, I'm pretty darned sure that they weren't writing in magic, invisible words to article three that said "hey, steal the powers of article five and give 'em to the judiciary"... no, I'm pretty sure that was an usurpation of unauthorized power, and so again, I really don't assign any validity at all to any case you might want to cite that claims that "ams" means "flintlocks" or some other imaginary thing.
Next: At the time the constitution was written, the authors (and everyone else) were well aware that "arms" included all manner of pistols, rifles, muskets, cannons, explosive and solid cannonballs, cannonballs filled with shards, frigates with multiple decks of cannon, wagons with explosives and multiple guns rigged to fire in unison, chain shot, flaming missiles soaked with pitch and other inflammable, easily spread and hard to extinguish compounds, swords, knives, bayonets, fighting canes, brass knuckles, battering rams, catapults, siege towers, glass bottles, garrotes, whips, chains, both fused and mechanically triggered explosives, striking weapons like sticks and poles and quarterstaffs and maces and war-hammers, spears, bows, axes, arrows and crossbows I could go on for quite some time. All of these things were in common use in warfare and self-defense at the time. Yet, knowing all these things, all they put in the 2nd amendment was “arms.” So clearly, that’s what they meant. Arms of any kind. They didn’t say “muskets and pistols.” They said arms.
So when some crispy old fuck in a black robe says, then, that you can't carry a knife, or that you must hide your gun, or that you must not hide it, or that you can't own one (no license) or that you can't carry one, we're hip deep in bullshit and nothing else.
Further: The authors were well aware that arms were a technology under constant development. There were many new arms that came to be during their lives, and yet, again, they said arms. Not "the arms of today" or "the arms a soldier normally carries." These kinds of "interpretations" are utter bullshit. Arms. That's what it means. Arms of all kinds, and if you want to change that, see article five or go hang yourself. That's what's right, and in a sane world, that's what we'd be doing. With the judiciary and the legislature out of control, and the entire cabal of lawyers acting like poleaxed sycophants, that's not what we see. Instead, we see usurpation of unauthorized power, and lawyers pointing at what the judiciary says in order to justify what the judiciary has done, despite the literal and explicit prohibition against exactly those acts. The foxes guarding the henhouse, indeed.
When article three says that the supreme court has judicial power, I'm pretty damn sure that isn't code for "the constitution is irrelevant and the judiciary can make up anything they want." No, I think it means they get to hear evidence in constitutional cases, and then they are supposed to say "guilty" or "not guilty" and not a darned thing more. This "interpretation" stuff is toxic to our republic and has been all along.
commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry a
the War on Guns will prove to be as successful and as effective as the War on Drugs has proven to be.
And also, just as unauthorized.
Prohibition WRT alcohol required a constitutional amendment. Marijuana, for some magical reason, did not. Why? I mean, other than government out of control? Where did this magical power to step on our liberties come from?
The 2nd amendment is explicit: The government is forbidden from infringing upon our right to keep and carry arms. They are engaged in applying unauthorized power to the citizens with every law that infringes on the right to keep and carry arms, of which there are a huge number.
Any law that interposes licensing, restrictions on carrying (whether open or not), or restricts any particular arm, is completely outside the scope of the government's legitimate authority.
The constitution is the highest law in the land. The government is engaged in breaking that law.
Now, what stops a company from taking your code and making massive changes to it and shipping that code for mad moneys?
Nothing. So what? Seems like it'd be good for the economy.
What forces them to give back their changes that might make that code better?
Nothing. So what? Why do you assume it is appropriate that I force anyone into anything?
What did you and the community gain by contributing to that company's revenue?
If the community did gain something, perhaps a healthier company, better security for its employees, or whatever, good. But there was no intent for that either, so if not, meh. The point is simple: I wrote some stuff, here it is, bye, going to write some more stuff now.
What if I just took your code and put it on a CD and started selling it with no credit to you and no link or reference to the source code?
What if you did? I wouldn't get my 15 minutes on "Oprah" or something? I don't need your approval or adulation... how about that? And if you benefit, that's great. I hope you do.
Well, what if that company then claimed that your code was an unlicensed version of their code and moved to have it remove?
The day it shows up on the net and the day that functionality shows up in their software should trivially prevent that kind of claim, but if they did, then I'd probably pull it just to avoid any contact with lawyers, frankly. it wasn't there to earn money, or fame, and so removing it isn't any kind of a load. I kind of think this is a situation almost no one would ever see. It's too obvious that the company is making a false claim just based on the usual array of "memories" the network has, from wayback machine like entities to caches and logs and etc. Could it happen? Sure. But if you're not looking for fame and fortune, really, so what. Having said that, I've got a lot of code out there with no license. A database, auroral prediction engines, NWS data interpolators, etc.; and I've other code that's straight up trade secret: no license, but no code released. SDR software, etc. It's never happened to me. I don't worry that it will, and I see no particular serious ill effect if it did. I see *far* more damage if I stick some license on there like the GPL and thereby throw a monkey wrench into progress for someone else. Lastly, what's to stop them from doing this even if you had, say, the GPL stuck on your code? If they're going to lie, they're going to lie. At that point, you're back to lawyers and court, and you can go there alone as far as I'm concerned. Every day not spent in a courtroom or a lawyer's office is a better day from my perspective.
And that's why we have open source licenses
Licenses exist because lawyers are like parasitic cockroaches, which have infiltrated every aspect of your life. Between that and the "I wanna be famous" thing, people become natural victims; and in the process, with many of these licenses (GPL, I'm looking at you), they prevent their code from doing the most it can in the most hands it could. If the author is happy with that, fine. But some of us just want to write code sometimes, and public domain or "throw it in the air and see where it comes down" is perfectly fine for those projects.
Me, I'm really tired of both patent and copyright sewers. While I recognize the law and behave from my side of it -- no pirating, no violating licenses -- I"m just tired and I no longer want to engage in ownership tizzies on the creative side. As far as I can tell, it's done us no better in any case than a trade secret would have, and its done us far worse in many cases -- the amount of time and money spent on the copyright and patent system with participants trying to eat each other alive in court is nothing short of a tragedy.
lol.... did you even look at the example code you pointed to? Crap, what an unholy mess!
Please. Perl's got hacks that sorta act like multi dim array if you jump through hoops. But they aren't really that, and they don't actually work like multi dim arrays, and it's a bloody mess if you're even willing to be slightly honest. Half the time the thing presents as a single dim array anyway.
Constitutionally speaking, yes, nukes are fine. The correct path for the government to have followed at the time would have been to amend the 2nd to the general tune of "except for nuclear arms, biological arms, and chemical arms" (or some such verbiage) -- which I think very few US citizens would have an objection to, and therefore would have been a (relatively) easy amendment to pass. Then they could have made laws to follow, and those laws would have been legitimate in the context of the constitutional republic that the constitution authorizes them to have.
Instead, they have elected to bypass the constitution, most likely for two reasons. First, to admit they they don't have such power would be to also put into doubt many other unconstitutional actions they have engaged in (ex post facto laws, the inversion of the commerce clause, the usurpation of powers not enumerated to them, the assumption of article V powers by the judiciary, various deep transgressions against the bill of rights, etc.) Second, there is probably no more scary boogyman than the spectre of nuclear weapons; it's an excellent pretext to rush to do something because "it needs to be done." Although if we consider the dawn of the nuclear age with any kind of dispassionate eye, it is easy to realize that they would have had a great deal of time available to them before anyone would have had the wherewithal to actually create or obtain a nuclear weapon. Biological and chemical weapons are unfortunately quite easy to manufacture, so the "plenty of time" feature doesn't apply there, but again, that's not to say that the correct path was impossible to follow.
The point of the constitution was to make some things very inconvenient for the government to pursue. They have so altered the stage such that this is no longer even remotely the case. My contention is that we have definitively passed out of that time where we could legitimately call ourselves a constitutional republic.
...definition of Militia, in the south every white male of fighting age was meant to be in one - to supress a slave uprising should one arise.
Yes, that's certainly one way the milita could be used at the time.
In a civil war, the cause is leadership. A very small number of targets causing a very large proportion of the problem that resulted in the war in the first place.
There's not going to be a US civl war again - bread and circuses see to that - but sure as can be, were there one, it's not the military that would be the target, because it wasn't the military that was the problem in the first place.
In a hypothetical situation where the judiciary had incurred murderous wrath of a large portion of the populace, how difficult do you really think it would be to pick them off? And how likely do you think their successors would be to continue whatever behavior it was that got their predecessors bumped?
Even congress isn't large enough to pose a serious challenge to an enraged country who really wanted to get rid of them.
The thing is, this situation does not exist. Cheeseburgers and episodes of "Lost." That's what the American people really want. And they've got it. Ergo, no civil war. No matter what anyone in power does. Believe it -- that's been the actual situation for decades now.
Right, because there's no such thing as a suicide bomber.
Didja ever notice that "suicide bombers" are never the old men that run things and can afford expensive weaponry like nukes? See, those people got old because they like to live, and so that whole "If I nuke them, they nuke me, so I'm not nuking them" thing remains in play.
The typical suicide bomber profile is a young, poor, single, powerless, religious fanatic. They're encouraged by the higher-ups because there is almost no chance of blowback from those actions. Change the context to a nuke... all of a sudden rhetoric becomes the weapon of the day.
once "die on your feet" seems better than "live on your knees", it will happen. It always has.
On the other hand, the bread and circuses have never been so plentiful and entertaining, nor surveillance so widespread. Further, we've just observed an almost completely passive reaction to the sundering of almost the entire bill of rights, one amendment at a time. Not sure we're comparing Apples to apples here; there's no sign whatsoever of a revolution that I've been able to see. I mean, there are always complainers, but the public is not riled up at all. In fact, I think they'd be more likely to be riled up if they thought those bread and circuses were going to be interrupted.
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The thing you need to know about those sticks is that they are *really* prone to overload and various nasty IM-like failure modes. Fun, you bet, but you kinda get what you pay for there. If you want them to work well, you'll spend ten times the effort on filters in between the antenna system and the unit in most install situations. In a really rural area you could get away with it, as everything is (relatively) weak then.
Best one out there right now is about $200 US, it's the FUNcube pro+ dongle. That's near-0 through about 2 GHZ, so you get LF through L band, IIRC. Still has some overload issues (not awful, but not what you'd really want, either), but for two hundred bucks, ya can't beat it.
-- Not associated with the FUNcube folks either, other than my (free) SdrDx software supports it.
For HF:
SDR-IQ (about $500 from RFSPACE or a store) and my SdrDx software (free) -- Windows and Mac versions. 14 bit decoding, USB connection to the computer, ethernet server software (free) available so you can remote the head unit.
192 kHz bw coverage from a few Hz to 30 Mhz: AM, SAM, FM, USB, LSB, CW... output to (free) decoding for SSTV, WEFAX, RTTY, Olivia, Contestia, Domino, Heil, DREAM (digital SW broadcasts), MFSK, MT63, PSK, QPSK, PSKR, THOR, THROB, NAVTEX/SITORB... pretty much you name it.
RF waterfall with palette control, RF spectrum (signal) display, independent analysis scope (RTTY, audio, spectrum, vector, 3D, Smeter/Squelch, carrier, audio waterfall)
Band markings, channel and freq ID database, auto SW station ID, point and click brick wall envelope control, multiple notch filters, TDM filtering, multioctave 50/60 hz filters, memories and memory markers, DSP noise and impulse processing, wideband recording (192 khz at a time) and playback, LPF, HPF, compatible (on the mac) with Audio Hijack Pro and Soundflower for even more audio processing goodness...
External tuning knob support, midi control surface support (to remap real knobs and buttons to other controls like volume, RF gain, squelch, blanker settings, passband edges, tuning by steps, etc.), remote antenna tuning support, remote radio control support (TCP/IP, includes example Python clients.)
SDR makes analog radio look like some very un-serious stuff. I'm listening to some hams on 3870 kHz now.
-- not associated with RFSPACE. I just write code. :)
Mmmpf. HF is where all the fun is. :)
Nope. Lousy programmers strike again. There's nothing at all wrong with c-strings. There is, however, a sufficiency of lousy programmers who lack the skill to handle perfectly simple data structures. Seriously, if you can't handle a zero terminated string or keep from overrunning an array, it's not the string format that's the problem. It's you.
Assuming the problem here is a string problem may be jumping the gun, too. Could just as easily be something else.
Someone oughta port -- not update, just port -- Mechassault I to a new machine, and then reopen the online gameplay. Those were the days, all right. Big pixels... sure. But the gameplay, OMG the gameplay.
I have an XBox, XBox 360, PS3, and a Wii on the system. The pre/pro is at its max number of inputs (six HDMI, three component, I don't use composite except for the security system), so it's becoming an issue of what to take off if I add something new. Rewiring the thing every time the kids (or grandkids, or I, or my lady) change games... not an option. It has to be easy to switch and it has to fit into my input arrangements. Without external switch boxes (component switches suck, and HDMI switches, at least so far, have been unreliable and difficult to integrate.) I have Gamecube, PS2 and PS1 systems stored, but they're not likely to come back out because of my input shortage anyway. The other six inputs all have "stuff" on them that isn't coming off either.
Well, I've just a few real favorites myself -- race games, Maximo, Mechassault -- but my lady has several exercise ones she likes, and the (3 adult) boys have their favorites, typically shooters, and the grandkids like completely different stuff. Crash bandicoot, etc. I'd say overall there are probably 20 from the older consoles that are in regular play around here, plus several from the ps3/360/wii generation. (Silly Wii bowling and such might never die at my house. Kinect was a complete flop here because it's blinded by the projection system.) There are some decent 360 games, as a musician I particularly enjoy guitar hero type stuff, but none that have hooked me the way the original maximo, mechassault and project gotham did. Gameplay, gameplay, gameplay. Mechassault II is playable, but without the online play of vI, it's really just a shadow of the first one. PS3... still waiting for something really worthy there other than (more) guitar hero and LEGO games. Though it's a good bluray player, always up to date, etc.
I try -- hard -- to keep everything as playable as I can for everybody, and I'd just as soon not buy a machine if it's only going to work for one generation of media. Buying replacements on EBay is inevitably a crapshoot.
As far as playing them all goes... no. But I think that after choking up $50 for a game, if one of the kids wants to try it, they should be able to. Across the family, we definitely don't prefer the same kinds of games, so what I hated, they might love. So I'm *really* reluctant to give up on a game because some megacorp wanted to shave $10 off the hardware price. If I don't buy the new console, I don't spend money on the games, and so I don't buy into further erosion of my game library; and my old stuff keeps on cooking. For me, it's not about having the latest. It's about accumulating a broad entertainment capacity. Oh, and also... older games can now be had, used, at much lower cost. That's very appealing. $50 a pop adds right the heck up.
As far as setting up separate, stand-alone systems goes, I sorta dug myself a hole there, didn't really see it coming, though it's obvious now. The main system is big audio, big screen (really big.) Now no one wants to play on a "little tv", lol.
Just speaking for myself here. Everyone's milage varies with this stuff.
My concern is primarily compatibility. We've got a good sized collection of games -- far more dollars invested there than in the consoles -- and if the new hotness won't play them, it's not coming to my shelves.
Not sure how to deal with the lies: XBox 360 claimed they would implement compatibility via downloads; then they didn't produce the downloads for the best games (the Mechassault series for one example.)
Then there is "the cheapening": The PS3 (original) came with PS2 hardware, and that really worked pretty well. Then they took that out. Which doesn't work for me, but I do have the original version. Sadly, only replaceable via EBay now because the newer PS3's stripped that out.
So PS4, XBoxXXX... going to wait and see if they obsolete my game library, and if they do, pffft. If they don't, will wait at least a little and see if the compatibility is decent.
Really not very happy with these companies.
Nah, he's probably arguing that safe products should be exempt from sensibly constructed rules. As opposed to blanket rules that are so wide-ranging as to cause pointless changes (which, despite your assertion, tend to be expensive, screw up inventory chains, and often don't impact consumers anyway) for no actual reason. You know, as if common sense were in effect during rule making instead of lazy, stupid hand-waving by morons.
Something like, "In a product configuration where consumers could be injured by fan blades in normal use without such modification, the following safety precautions must be added to the design:"
Then, no inspectors required, if a product does not comply, a complaint could be lodged (if anyone cared, doubtful, but hey) and the manufacturer required to comply within the legal system. Or, no one would complain, and the "rule" would be forgotten as one of the millions of useless, masturbatory spurts legislators tend to product because, for some reason, the entire world seems to keep electing idiots, and they keep constructing bureaucracies out of more idiots. And products where no risk exist, like the Mac Pro, would be exempt (and immune from legal action) simply because there is no risk in normal use -- which with a computer box is open for updates, or closed for normal operation.
I can't speak for the EU, but here in the US, bureaucracies are terrible things, on the best of days just impeding progress, but often doing far worse, upping costs for no reason, shepherding resources to corporations and away from the people, specifying things like toilet distance from the wall, the number of windows in a house... it's a bloody nightmare. I own a recent Mac Pro, and I can tell you that getting yourself injured by the fan would take an act of stupidity so gross as to basically guarantee you couldn't operate a computer anyway.
Also, when you say a rule isn't expensive to abide by, the problem is that when you add all the rules together, all those little expenses become one big expense. So keeping them from proliferating is a good idea. Which, again, not really something you find in government. Good ideas, that is.
Well, actually, another alternative is for motherboard manufacturers to continue to make motherboards that boot the same way as they have for some time. So older, fully functional operating systems can continue to boot.
Of course, this would allow us to continue to use those fully functional OSs, and remove a goodly portion of the incentive to upgrade... so one might, if one were cynical, imagine that there is a corporate motive at work here.
Argh. Of course I meant "interstate mean intrastate"
Sorry.
Well, I have researched it, and the intent, as laid out in the milita act of 1792, was that everone had at a minimum adequate armament so that when they showed up, they'd be useful and not a load. However, citizens that brought cannon, frigate, and so forth were not only welcomed, they were often promoted just on that basis; ships issued authorization to act for the government, and so on. They were very into the citizens bringing effective arms of all kinds.
And you know why that was? Because there was no army, no navy, no nothing. So were they to restrict the arms the citizens had, they would have been restricting the arms the nation had.
When they said arms, they did indeed mean arms. Trying to make "arms" read as "muskets and swords" is either grievously misguided, or intentionally disingenuous.
Although it's worth noting that today, were you to appear in public in many places with a sword on your belt or a musket on your shoulder, you'd soon find that even your minimalist interpretation has been overrun by legislative and judicial sophists.
No, I'm afraid we're not. Now now (we presently have a fiat corporate oligarchy, by all signs), and not when we were closer to what the constitution enabled, which is a constitutional republic. If you'll recall the pledge: "...to the republic, for which it stands..." Battle Hymn of the Republic... those are just a few of the (many) signs that serve as a reminder. Our federal government is configured as a straight-up constitutional republic. The word "democracy" appears nowhere in the constitution. The word Republic, however, does.
Moreover, for the states, from the constitution:
Sorry, it's not a democracy, and it was never intended to be. That's just an emotionally loaded trigger word pushed by the media. Democracy, as the fella said, is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. Doesn't work.
To claim that we're a democracy because a fraction of the selection process is democratic... that's disingenuous. The system, the whole shebang, as it were, is laid out in the constitution as a republic, top to bottom.
Yes. This is a benefit gained by forbidding the government from infringing; that fighting citizens can be consistently prepared to be called up. That's what militia and well-regulated mean. None of which changes the instruction to the government, which forbids it from infringing on our already existing right to keep and carry arms.
That bad law is extant does not justify its existence. We had law that created and supported slavery. Would you then claim that because such law existed, that's the way things should be? You see the glaring logical flaw in claiming that because "we're already doing it", "it's right"? The fact is, it's right if it's right, and otherwise, it's wrong.
It's an infringement; such a strong one, in fact, that it completely obviates the right to keep and carry arms; the government is explicitly enjoined from making any such legislation. It's wrong. From start to finish. Barring amendment of the 2nd to change it fairly radically, licensing is utterly unlawful, specifically because the constitution says so.
Why, thank you, sir. :) [does a little jig]
I assure you, I am not. I will debate any point you like in this particular argument, and I will do so as honestly as I can. I try to keep my responses cogent and aimed at the subject brought up; I do not leave out the explicatory phrase from my shorter arguments in order to hide anything, but rather because it is not an instruction to government, while the final phrase is most definitely nothing else but. I am perfectly ready to talk about the explicatory phrase as well, should that really concern you. And in that regard...
May I respectfully point you to a fuller exposition on the matter of mine? You'll find it here.
The argument goes: the 2nd amendment mentions our right to keep and carry arms. We start with this right, directly out of the gate. The 2nd then enjoins (forbids) the federal government from infringing on that right. Nuclear weapons are arms. Therefore, yes, the federal government is not authorized to tell us, right now, that we can't keep and carry nuclear arms.
However: The constitution contains a wonderful section, entitled "Amendment"; this allows the government to make changes with the consent of the people. That's how the constitution was designed to evolve and change. Way, way back in the 1940's, right after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when we, the public, learned of these weapons, the US government could have (and I would argue, should have) crafted an amendment to the constitution that said, as an addendum to the 2nd, "...except for nuclear-effect, biological-effect, and chemical-effect weapons." The odds of such a thing passing would, I think, have been near 100%. And at the time, proliferation wasn't a risk, either. So there was every reason to do it right. And that's exactly the right course of action; that, or something similar, I'm not saying my wording is perfect, just the idea of it is.
But... they didn't do that. Instead, they made fiat law; law that has no authorizing basis in the constitution. They were wrong. They should fix that. ASAP. Not because I'm thinking honest patriots will want nukes (or miscreants could afford them); but because the feds need to be operating under the constitution, not outside it.
Now, as to your assertion that arms implies "muskets and pistols." At the time the constitution was written, well known arms consisted of all manner of pistols, rifles, muskets, cannons, explosive and solid cannonballs, cannonballs filled with shards, frigates with multiple decks of cannon, wagons with explosives and multiple guns rigged to fire in unison, chain shot, flaming missiles soaked with pitch and other inflammable, easily spread and hard to extinguish compounds, swords, knives, bayonets, fighting canes, toxins and active biologicals, brass knuckles, battering rams, catapults, siege towers, glass bottles, garrotes, whips, chains, both fused and mechanically triggered explosives, striking weapons like sticks and poles and quarterstaffs and maces and war-hammers, spears, bows, axes, arrows and crossbows... I could go on for quite some time. All of these things were in common use in warfare and self-defense at the time. Yet, knowing all these things, all they put in the 2nd amendment was “arms.” So clearly, that’s what they meant. Arms of any kind. They didn’t say “muskets and pistols.” They said arms.
They were also well aware that arms sophistication and types were multiplying almost daily; they'd just been in war, and they took advantage of those developments regularly. And they still just said arms; not "arms of the current day", but just arms.
It's also worth noting that swords were very much weapons of the day. Where, pray tell, did the government get its authorization to forbid swords (and knives, and staffs, and sword-canes, etc.) from if your argument for "arms of the day" (brought as "pistols and muskets) is valid? Surely you can see that the laws are being made arbitrarily and counter to the constitution no matter if the "correct" interpretation is "of the day" (even though that's stated nowhere) or "arms" (which is actually what it says.)
And remember, article 5 (amendment) was in there all along, so they knew that if something really needed changing, it could be changed. The fault here lies with our modern government,
The court has no authorization to speak on this issue. No such authorization is present in the constitution.
The fact that the court awarded itself such an extra-constitutional authorization ought to be the source of great concern to everyone -- as a criminal act -- rather than the basis for your contention that the court is the final arbiter of everything and that the constitution no longer matters.
The base argument is: the court is corrupt. When you respond with "but the court says", you are not responding to the charge, and therefore your defense is empty. Numerous ways that demonstrate the court is corrupt have been brought to the discussion. Ex post facto laws (corrupt even by it's own definitions), inversion of the commerce clause, predation upon the bill of rights; you cannot defend those accusations by saying "the court says", you have to approach it from the angle of "what the court said is right because..." and then avoid quoting the court saying everything is ok, just go to sleep now -- the reasoning has to come from the constitution, because that is where the court gets its authority.
An argument about/on what the "judicial power" as stated in the constitution means would be appropriate. An argument that quotes Scalia is less than worthless.
As regards what we, the citizens think, yes, the fact that you assert the court does not care is patently obvious. The concern the court ought to have is that as it tramples on our rights, it causes real harm, and people often react in very extreme ways when they are harmed, particularly if they determine that the harm was entirely undeserved. Compounded by a corrupt and sophist legal system that blocks and prevents redress, while constantly increasing pressure, the situation is unstable and may even be dangerous.
I've been paying attention. From what I've been able to learn thus far, it seems that that particular shooting was the result of a drug-related issue. It may not have been; it could easily also have been the results of blowback against prosecutors who overload charges in order to force plea bargains; untrue charges that the prosecutor would not back down on, people responding to the unfair punishment of an innocent person, and so on. We don't really know yet. Given the circumstances, it seems to have been an attempt to send a message of "don't fuck with us", or, "you fucked with us, but never again."
Now, if it was drug war related, that's entirely on the government's plate as far as responsibility goes. They never had the right to make drugs illegal (why did prohibition of alcohol require a constitutional amendment, but not marijuana and friends?) and even if you do think they had that right, the lesson of prohibition one was plain: Do so, and you create powerful extra-legal entities to fulfill the need you just locked out of permitted commerce. So the government created the situation in the first place. Because, I might add, it was being stupid.
Now, if it wasn't drug related, then perhaps it was one of the (very, very many) instances of prosecutorial malfeasance that someone had had enough of. I have seen the human wreckage caused by overeager prosecutions, unfair jailings, the classing that occurs once one has been deemed a "felon", even no more than the financial toll the legal system takes as if it were due. I'm only surprised that reactions such as this aren't more common, given how deeply and pervasively corrupt the legal system is.
Or, perhaps, just perhaps (but not very likely) it was something else. Maybe just the thrill of killing a prosecutor. I don't know.
But let's not fall off a cliff giving reams of sympathy to the prosecutor until we know what happened. It may be this is a very good example of why the people should be armed, and when the system refuses to respond to their legitimate needs and rights, that measures need to be taken. If the system is broken, those measures may well land outside the system. And we know the system in broken.
When the system doesn't work, and attempts to correct it meet with stone-walled resistance, what recourse do the people have? Should they suffer? Or should they act?
Just a reminder: This is (supposed to be) a constitutional republic, not a democracy. That means you elect representatives, and they decide what's what, but that those decisions are supposed to be subject to limits defined by the constitution they swear an oath to. We were never intended to be a democracy. What we are today seems to be an unauthorized, fiat corporate oligarchy; we've never been a democracy, though.
Ok. First, I'm not "citing a case." I'm citing the constitution. Further, I'm going entirely with the proposition that the judiciary and the legislature has violated the constitution with sophist garbage.
Next: The 2nd amendment says "arms." It means arms. It doesn't say "arms except for...", no, it says "arms." So every case that tries to say, or imply, that it says anything other than "arms" is a steaming crock of fecal matter.
Next: The authors of the constitution were well aware that the future brings change; they provided article five (amendment) to make sure that such changes could be incorporated, with the broad consent of the people. Given that they did so, I'm pretty darned sure that they weren't writing in magic, invisible words to article three that said "hey, steal the powers of article five and give 'em to the judiciary"... no, I'm pretty sure that was an usurpation of unauthorized power, and so again, I really don't assign any validity at all to any case you might want to cite that claims that "ams" means "flintlocks" or some other imaginary thing.
Next: At the time the constitution was written, the authors (and everyone else) were well aware that "arms" included all manner of pistols, rifles, muskets, cannons, explosive and solid cannonballs, cannonballs filled with shards, frigates with multiple decks of cannon, wagons with explosives and multiple guns rigged to fire in unison, chain shot, flaming missiles soaked with pitch and other inflammable, easily spread and hard to extinguish compounds, swords, knives, bayonets, fighting canes, brass knuckles, battering rams, catapults, siege towers, glass bottles, garrotes, whips, chains, both fused and mechanically triggered explosives, striking weapons like sticks and poles and quarterstaffs and maces and war-hammers, spears, bows, axes, arrows and crossbows I could go on for quite some time. All of these things were in common use in warfare and self-defense at the time. Yet, knowing all these things, all they put in the 2nd amendment was “arms.” So clearly, that’s what they meant. Arms of any kind. They didn’t say “muskets and pistols.” They said arms.
So when some crispy old fuck in a black robe says, then, that you can't carry a knife, or that you must hide your gun, or that you must not hide it, or that you can't own one (no license) or that you can't carry one, we're hip deep in bullshit and nothing else.
Further: The authors were well aware that arms were a technology under constant development. There were many new arms that came to be during their lives, and yet, again, they said arms. Not "the arms of today" or "the arms a soldier normally carries." These kinds of "interpretations" are utter bullshit. Arms. That's what it means. Arms of all kinds, and if you want to change that, see article five or go hang yourself. That's what's right , and in a sane world, that's what we'd be doing. With the judiciary and the legislature out of control, and the entire cabal of lawyers acting like poleaxed sycophants, that's not what we see. Instead, we see usurpation of unauthorized power, and lawyers pointing at what the judiciary says in order to justify what the judiciary has done, despite the literal and explicit prohibition against exactly those acts. The foxes guarding the henhouse, indeed.
When article three says that the supreme court has judicial power, I'm pretty damn sure that isn't code for "the constitution is irrelevant and the judiciary can make up anything they want." No, I think it means they get to hear evidence in constitutional cases, and then they are supposed to say "guilty" or "not guilty" and not a darned thing more. This "interpretation" stuff is toxic to our republic and has been all along.
And also, just as unauthorized.
Prohibition WRT alcohol required a constitutional amendment. Marijuana, for some magical reason, did not. Why? I mean, other than government out of control? Where did this magical power to step on our liberties come from?
The 2nd amendment is explicit: The government is forbidden from infringing upon our right to keep and carry arms. They are engaged in applying unauthorized power to the citizens with every law that infringes on the right to keep and carry arms, of which there are a huge number.
Any law that interposes licensing, restrictions on carrying (whether open or not), or restricts any particular arm, is completely outside the scope of the government's legitimate authority.
The constitution is the highest law in the land. The government is engaged in breaking that law.
Welcome to government by fiat.
Nothing. So what? Seems like it'd be good for the economy.
Nothing. So what? Why do you assume it is appropriate that I force anyone into anything?
If the community did gain something, perhaps a healthier company, better security for its employees, or whatever, good. But there was no intent for that either, so if not, meh. The point is simple: I wrote some stuff, here it is, bye, going to write some more stuff now.
What if you did? I wouldn't get my 15 minutes on "Oprah" or something? I don't need your approval or adulation... how about that? And if you benefit, that's great. I hope you do.
The day it shows up on the net and the day that functionality shows up in their software should trivially prevent that kind of claim, but if they did, then I'd probably pull it just to avoid any contact with lawyers, frankly. it wasn't there to earn money, or fame, and so removing it isn't any kind of a load. I kind of think this is a situation almost no one would ever see. It's too obvious that the company is making a false claim just based on the usual array of "memories" the network has, from wayback machine like entities to caches and logs and etc. Could it happen? Sure. But if you're not looking for fame and fortune, really, so what. Having said that, I've got a lot of code out there with no license. A database, auroral prediction engines, NWS data interpolators, etc.; and I've other code that's straight up trade secret: no license, but no code released. SDR software, etc. It's never happened to me. I don't worry that it will, and I see no particular serious ill effect if it did. I see *far* more damage if I stick some license on there like the GPL and thereby throw a monkey wrench into progress for someone else. Lastly, what's to stop them from doing this even if you had, say, the GPL stuck on your code? If they're going to lie, they're going to lie. At that point, you're back to lawyers and court, and you can go there alone as far as I'm concerned. Every day not spent in a courtroom or a lawyer's office is a better day from my perspective.
Licenses exist because lawyers are like parasitic cockroaches, which have infiltrated every aspect of your life. Between that and the "I wanna be famous" thing, people become natural victims; and in the process, with many of these licenses (GPL, I'm looking at you), they prevent their code from doing the most it can in the most hands it could. If the author is happy with that, fine. But some of us just want to write code sometimes, and public domain or "throw it in the air and see where it comes down" is perfectly fine for those projects.
Me, I'm really tired of both patent and copyright sewers. While I recognize the law and behave from my side of it -- no pirating, no violating licenses -- I"m just tired and I no longer want to engage in ownership tizzies on the creative side. As far as I can tell, it's done us no better in any case than a trade secret would have, and its done us far worse in many cases -- the amount of time and money spent on the copyright and patent system with participants trying to eat each other alive in court is nothing short of a tragedy.
lol.... did you even look at the example code you pointed to? Crap, what an unholy mess!
Please. Perl's got hacks that sorta act like multi dim array if you jump through hoops. But they aren't really that, and they don't actually work like multi dim arrays, and it's a bloody mess if you're even willing to be slightly honest. Half the time the thing presents as a single dim array anyway.
Constitutionally speaking, yes, nukes are fine. The correct path for the government to have followed at the time would have been to amend the 2nd to the general tune of "except for nuclear arms, biological arms, and chemical arms" (or some such verbiage) -- which I think very few US citizens would have an objection to, and therefore would have been a (relatively) easy amendment to pass. Then they could have made laws to follow, and those laws would have been legitimate in the context of the constitutional republic that the constitution authorizes them to have.
Instead, they have elected to bypass the constitution, most likely for two reasons. First, to admit they they don't have such power would be to also put into doubt many other unconstitutional actions they have engaged in (ex post facto laws, the inversion of the commerce clause, the usurpation of powers not enumerated to them, the assumption of article V powers by the judiciary, various deep transgressions against the bill of rights, etc.) Second, there is probably no more scary boogyman than the spectre of nuclear weapons; it's an excellent pretext to rush to do something because "it needs to be done." Although if we consider the dawn of the nuclear age with any kind of dispassionate eye, it is easy to realize that they would have had a great deal of time available to them before anyone would have had the wherewithal to actually create or obtain a nuclear weapon. Biological and chemical weapons are unfortunately quite easy to manufacture, so the "plenty of time" feature doesn't apply there, but again, that's not to say that the correct path was impossible to follow.
The point of the constitution was to make some things very inconvenient for the government to pursue. They have so altered the stage such that this is no longer even remotely the case. My contention is that we have definitively passed out of that time where we could legitimately call ourselves a constitutional republic.
Yes, that's certainly one way the milita could be used at the time.
In a civil war, the cause is leadership. A very small number of targets causing a very large proportion of the problem that resulted in the war in the first place.
There's not going to be a US civl war again - bread and circuses see to that - but sure as can be, were there one, it's not the military that would be the target, because it wasn't the military that was the problem in the first place.
In a hypothetical situation where the judiciary had incurred murderous wrath of a large portion of the populace, how difficult do you really think it would be to pick them off? And how likely do you think their successors would be to continue whatever behavior it was that got their predecessors bumped?
Even congress isn't large enough to pose a serious challenge to an enraged country who really wanted to get rid of them.
The thing is, this situation does not exist. Cheeseburgers and episodes of "Lost." That's what the American people really want. And they've got it. Ergo, no civil war. No matter what anyone in power does. Believe it -- that's been the actual situation for decades now.
Didja ever notice that "suicide bombers" are never the old men that run things and can afford expensive weaponry like nukes? See, those people got old because they like to live, and so that whole "If I nuke them, they nuke me, so I'm not nuking them" thing remains in play.
The typical suicide bomber profile is a young, poor, single, powerless, religious fanatic. They're encouraged by the higher-ups because there is almost no chance of blowback from those actions. Change the context to a nuke... all of a sudden rhetoric becomes the weapon of the day.
On the other hand, the bread and circuses have never been so plentiful and entertaining, nor surveillance so widespread. Further, we've just observed an almost completely passive reaction to the sundering of almost the entire bill of rights, one amendment at a time. Not sure we're comparing Apples to apples here; there's no sign whatsoever of a revolution that I've been able to see. I mean, there are always complainers, but the public is not riled up at all. In fact, I think they'd be more likely to be riled up if they thought those bread and circuses were going to be interrupted.