As to "the little guy" I would say it all depends on what you consider little. My company isn't Microsoft but it isn't two guys in a basement.
So... are you saying it's OK to lock out two guys in a basement?
My point was that "little" meant that $6000 meant something to the development budget, and that isn't necessarily something that goes by employee count. If the budget is fixed and not very large, then six grand might be a deal breaker. If the "company" is a person is doing something in the evening after work, and getting six grand means no rent money, which is certainly a common scenario, then again we have a deal breaker. The presumption that six grand means nothing is meaningless, really, because the range of contexts varies all over the map. Which was my point. If you're at the moneyed end of the map, or have total control and six grand to spare, then you're golden, as long as the lawyers approve of it, of course. If you're some guy trying to get free of the mouse wheel, you may be in deep trouble and that was really who I was hand-waving about when I made the remark about this model favoring both ends, but not the "small guy."
So... how portable are your apps? They're not, you say?
They're extremely portable, m. Pitabred. They're compiled and running on windows, (red hat)linux, and OSX. Older versions - no longer developed for - run under Amiga OS, Be, every major version of Windows since WIndows 95 including RISC NT MIPS, Alpha, and PowerPC, all of which present their own problems. Our windows stuff also lives happily and easily under Parallels for OSX, and I would presume that Wine would work as we use a minimal set of OS calls. Do you have any other presumptions^W questions I can shoot down in flames ^W^W^W^W answer?
Or are you doing all your work on Mac mini's?
As a matter of fact, we did. A stank old PowerPC mini, in fact. So? The only thing the mini lacks as a development platform is an already installed copy of the development system, but it is on the release DVD, so it's only the work of a minute or two to get it over there, after which you can code your silly head off. We saw no reason to get anything more robust than a mini, and after having seen the port go so smoothly, I'd say that was exactly the right decision.
No, it really isn't. LGPL is the only general solution right now for a typical commercial application, and it presents problems with IP; specifically, section 4d, which boils down to providing code for the user to recompile that links to the LGPL'd libraries (not likely with most commercial IP models), or depending on the fact that the user has the library on their system already, which you can't do, because if they don't, your app, and therefore your whole commercial premise, is down the drain. A commercial application has to be install and run. Anything more than that and complications and problems ensue. Either way, because there is a license involved, legal has to sign off on it and that takes time, money, and can in some cases bring the entire process to a halt when legal won't sign off on something the license requires (such as source code distribution.)
Here is 4D for reference, emphasis mine:
4. Combined Works.
...
d) Do one of the following:
0) Convey the Minimal Corresponding Source under the terms of this License, and the Corresponding Application Code in a form suitable for, and under terms that permit, the user to recombine or relink the Application with a modified version of the Linked Version to produce a modified Combined Work, in the manner specified by section 6 of the GNU GPL for conveying Corresponding Source.
1) Use a suitable shared library mechanism for linking with the Library. A suitable mechanism is one that (a) uses at run time a copy of the Library already present on the user's computer system, and (b) will operate properly with a modified version of the Library that is interface-compatible with the Linked Version.
Cocoa would limit me to a platform I find difficult to use (nearsighted + Mac UI = bad).
Hopefully - and I can't speak authoritatively on this, but hopefully - the release version of OSX/Leopard will be fully scalable and both you and I will get some relief for our eyes.
Perhaps not; however, consider the OSX widget library cost to use and develop for: $0. Consider the Windows widget library cost to use and develop for: $0.
When you put it in that light, and you have a limited development budget, $6000, or worse, $6000 a seat, does tend to at least spawn a meeting or two where something else has to be traded for that capability. That may not be possible, especially for small developers. And isn't that kind of funny? Linux's GUI development environment favors free at the one end, and deep-pocket folk at the other, while locking out the small guys. Seems... I dunno, sort of un-linuxy.
We don't do server apps, and we considered linux quite seriously.
We have abandoned windows as a development platform, but it wasn't linux that replaced it, it was OSX. Linux's lack of a standard GUI layer in the OS - modern menus, buttons, lists, even windows - is the primary issue for us. There are lots of things that are very attractive about linux, not the least of which is a large user base that we think would have an interest in some of the things we can offer, and so we do keep an eye on what is going on. But there is a long history of independent widget development projects with quite a range of capabilities, licenses and corresponding legal issues, and in some cases, prices for commercial use; there's no certainty there will ever be a standard graphics layer. In my opinion, which is only one fellow's outlook (though I do control my company's direction) this is a key factor.
Both Microsoft and Apple have some pretty nice interface builders; that'd be a factor too, presuming that the embedded graphics eventually gets past xwindows and user-land layers on top of it. And by the way, I'm not advocating any of that be dropped; just that a standard be added to the OS that anyone can use in any way without any issues, just as one can use the fopen() call and know it'll be there and neither legal nor accounting will have to be called because the call was used.
The way I see it, manor/manner is a misspelling, they are nearly homonyms in middle American English, it was easy to understand what he meant. Rife and ripe aren't homonyms unless your lips have been amputated or you just got back from the dentist. I was attempting to be helpful, not annoying. YMMV.
The moderator clearly thinks that copyright issues are off-topic with regard to the GPL.
Has slashdot found a way to intentionally select moderators with IQ's under 100?
Come on. Slashdot luminaries have unlimited mod points. Where the heck are they when the system is clearly being abused? I'm not saying I deserved an up-mod, but to be modded down out of sight for a serious, on-topic post — that's just ludicrous.
In the USA, I see multiple sets of cascading problems.
One has nodes at lawsuit/tort law, liability insurance for medical professionals and institutions, and what I consider to be unacceptably harsh conditions involved in learning medicine, resulting a scarcity of what the law would consider qualified professionals. These all contribute enormously (and unnecessarily IMHO) to base costs.
Another set has nodes at uninsurables (for instance, someone who has been diagnosed with diabetes... they can't get insurance at any rational cost), at scammers (naturopaths to chiropractors to new-agerery to colloidal silver hawkers to GNC stores), at the insurance industry's unwillingness to take on or incorporate higher risk situations into the general pools, and at the actual inability for a very large percentage of the country to afford major medical costs of any kind.
While I agree with you that healthcare is not a right, either in the sense of a constitutionally enumerated or even derived right or in the sense of an abstract human right, I think it can be accurately described as a need and in that sense, it is very nearly universal, so much so that I am comfortable just saying "health care is a universal need."
Under the present circumstances, in addition to being a universal need, healthcare is extremely expensive, far beyond the ability of the majority of individuals to cope with the costs of any sudden serious medical service. I could sit in judgement of why this is so, but I think that is somewhat pointless at this juncture.
The fact is, if your average citizen was suddenly handed a diagnosis of breast cancer, the thirty grand we were just billed for my sweetheart's radiation, remote housing, radiology and path studies, lumpectomy and follow-ups would take said citizen from the knife-edge of a month to month budget right into bankruptcy, presuming they could not afford insurance. And this was something that they had an established procedure to deal with, involved only about an hour of surgery, and 6 weeks of ten minutes a day of 20+MeV radiation therapy. Imagine the bill if we were trying to deal with a metastasized cancer, or if her diabetes had caused some kind of serious complications. Insurance? Not an option. Deb is a diabetic.
Then there is well-care. We (Deb, they're mine by osmosis) have three boys, aged 30, 26, and 20. When the 30-year old was born, Deb was making about $5.00 an hour. Having the kid was $250 to the doctor, and $250 to the hospital for a normal birth. When the 26-year old was born by complication-free cesarian, she was still making $5.00 an hour, but the doctor got $1200, and the hospital about $2400. When the 20 year old was born, also by complication-free cesarian, she was making $5.50 an hour, the doctor got $5000, and the hospital got $5000. All three births were in Wyoming. Those bills were all paid without insurance, because Deb is a diabetic, and basically uninsurable. But they were paid; while these were unplanned and attempts were made to avoid them (she was on birth control all three times) pregnancies are never actually accidents — if you don't want a kid, simply don't have intercourse, it is totally avoidable — and Deb is a responsible human being.
So on the one hand, we have need, and on the other, we have costs not really coming from medical care, but out of the legal system and out of the insurance industry on two levels. People get sick and care is strongly desired for entirely understandable reasons - physical distress isn't something easily mediated by trying to rationalize your position. Most people can't afford such care on a sudden basis, and we really don't know who will need what, clearly some people get all the way through life without any incidents at all, while others fall ill or become injured repeatedly. Pooling finds from everyone such that as fate lets us know who is actually going to need the care seems to me to be a rational, reasonable
That's exactly what I was looking for; thank you. I'll be tucking the references away; it always helps to have explicatory commentary from an author of the document.
Now: What about states providing healthcare, for instance by collecting a tax similar in intent to worker's compensation, such that people's healthcare is paid for? This, then, would be a power devolved upon a state, pretty much as per the constitution. In this way, the middleman (insurers) is done away with, as well as a good deal of the official paths for profit motive from people's misfortune.
No. The constitution is literally the constituting authority from which all legitimate federal activity and organization derives. It is a critical and very specific link in how the federal government may act, and how it may not. The 14th amendment transfers some of that to the states, specifically the bill of rights.
Everything that the government does that is not able to trace its authorization back to the constitution, is literally illegal and and unauthorized.
The constitution provides the means for alteration; if new authority is desired, or old authority is to be discarded, then such alteration must be performed.
It is law, it is literally and specifically the "highest law in the land."
First of all, let's just note the fact that federalized health care is blatantly unconstitutional.
Would you at least, for my benefit and others who do concern ourselves with the constitution, outline why you consider that article one, section eight, first paragraph, would not be considered to authorize federalized health care?
I'm all for constitutional adherence, and I can see a lot of risk in assigning any more of the health care system to the feds, but it seems to me that the general welfare of the US is predicated directly upon the health of its citizens, just as it is their education, ability to conduct commerce, travel, and so on. And you say?
Where is socialized healthcare even mentioned in the constitution?
I believe you'll find the counter argument is based right here:
Article 1, Section 8: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;"
If you're going to argue against it, that's what you have to address. You can't just say there is no such charter in the constitution, because it appears that there may be.
Companies make money. That is usually their "main thing". The way to get there differs though. The "Healthcare Giants" are companies. You see the problem here?
Governments accrue power. That is usually their "main thing". The way to get there differs though. "Socialized medicine" is government. You see the problem here?
Seriously, I'm the first to say that we should stop using for-profit middlemen (insurance companies) and work with some kind of pool that does not seek to enrich itself by failing to provide healthcare. The idea that someone with a diagnosis of diabetes is completely uninsurable is horrifying to contemplate, as are many other artifacts of the current system. But the government has done the worst possible job at just about everything I can think of offhand where it has taken a role. From parks to radio to immigration to threat management to even handling pool money - social security for example. I am extremely cynical that giving the government any part of this would work out well.
I can't speak for canada, but in the US, the government is the least competent, and most dangerous, and most coercive, large entity I know of.
Breach of copyright isn't an inherent "wrong". It's an explicit social contract, particularly so in the US where the Constitution (IIRC) says that copyright is designed "for the progress of the arts"
Actually, since the constitution was not written by, contracted to be written by, signed by, participated in, or otherwise involved with currently living rank and file US citizens, it has absolutely no bearing on what said rank and file citizen does, or does not, do.
Furthermore, it isn't a document that was ever aimed at US citizens, directly or indirectly. It is a document that specifies the limits within which the federal government may act.
It extends to the state governments to the extent that the 14th amendment requires the states to comply with the bill of rights, that is, amendments one through ten.
No contract your father signs can make you liable to the terms of the contract without your signature. You have to sign it. So even if the constitution directed US citizens to do (or not to do) A, B and C, you still wouldn't be obligated to obey those stipulations by virtue of the constitution itself.
The fact that the government has implemented copyright law is the only issue with any merit, and the only merit involved is that the government is prepared to enforce said law(s) using coercive force.
The (current) government's obligation to the constitution survives and transitions forward based upon oath and affirmation, as for example, the president's oath where he swears to...
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
But what if they could easily tell his fingerprints, SSN, and address didn't match?
Well, look at what they're doing now. They put your name on the no-fly list. Not your SSN or other info, just your name. You show up, want a ticket - and they deny it. Now, it isn't like you can't produce your ID info; maybe birth certificate, license, etc. They're not interested in it - you simply can't fly because someone, somewhere, got your name (or someone else's name) on that list. All the ID in the world won't help UNLESS it is false ID and so you avoid your real name.
Now lets look at RealID. It has all manner of stuff; but they only have the name on the no-fly list, so that's all they compare. So you can't fly. No benefit there. The difference is that it is a lot harder to fly anonymously, because getting a fake RealID is going to be both tough, and illegal. But that's not all. Because it contains tech like RFID, it is constantly telling any device that listens who you are. If you wrap it in foil or something like that and manage to prevent it from talking to the various nearby systems, it'll still burp when you take it out, and of course, if you walk through a RealID enabled arch, that system will flag you because you don't broadcast when it expects you to.
So the end result is (a) you still can't fly, (b) the people at the counter know, or can know, a lot more about you, (c) every transgression you commit will follow you everywhere, (d) your ability to be anonymous is gone, (e) your identity can now be compromised by anyone with access to the system.
The problem is not, and never has been, that the average citizen can't prove who they are, or come up with all manner of documentation. Most everyone can, of course. The problem is that the government isn't using all that to blacklist citizens. It is just using names. Getting a RealID won't change this behavior, because it isn't the citizen that is short on data, it is the list of names. Could the government use SSNs and so forth on these lists? Sure. And that would help. But they don't. Why would they suddenly start doing so if you had a RealID? RealID doesn't address the problem area, which is that the government is compromising people based on lists that have very scanty information. They could 100% fix that problem now, without resorting to RealID or anything like it. So if it is a fix here you are looking for, then don't look at, or support, RealID. Just tell your congresscritter that the government needs to stop with the vague name-only lists on the one hand, and on the other, provide a judicial process by which a name gets on such a list, because this guy in a back room who can remove your ability to fly without any oversight is an affront to liberty, a travesty.
Saddam, as the head of his gov't was a legit target under LoAC.
No, since the entire war against iraq was illegitimate, Saddam was not a legitimate target. LoAC is not an excuse to go to war, it is a limitation on how war is waged. We had no legitimate reason to attack Iraq in this case. None whatsoever. So citing LoAC is an utterly empty thing to do.
Is it kidnapping when cops arrest someone?
It certainly can be, if they don't have probable cause relating directly to a known law or a warrant, or for that matter, jurisdiction. What, do you think they are delegated by god and cannot do wrong? Likewise, what the feds can do legitimately is limited. If you think it isn't, you are simply wrong.
By it's nature the CIA breaks the laws of other countries, that's what they do
A perfectly adequate reason to disband them. Also a perfectly adequate reason for other countries to treat the CIA, and our country in general, roughly. Which is not a good thing, and something we should seek to avoid. Again, another perfectly adequate reason to disband the CIA.
i suppose we could just guess what our enemies are doing, or ask them nicely to tell us the capabilities of the weapons they are planning to use to kill us.
What people are doing is irrelevant to us, unless they are doing it here. If they are doing it here, we have the tools to deal with them. If they aren't doing whatever they are doing here, they're not our problem. If they come here and do something, we are entitled to go after them, as any country would be. However, that is specifically not the case with the present Iraq war. We are not the world's policeman, and we have perfectly adequate means to police situations within our own borders and on the seas nearby. Stepping outside our own borders without extreme provocation makes us criminals.
We've been doing this for 200+ years now, through left and right administrations. Kennedy, who is revered by left and right, doesn't have clean hands. Clinton oversaw all sorts of operations.
Look. The fact that people have been murdering other people for millennia doesn't make it OK for you to go out and murder someone. Citing the wrongdoing of Kennedy or Christ or whomever makes no difference whatsoever to our current situation. We aren't obligated to stop because of precedent or lack of it; we're obligated to stop because what we are doing is wrong.
I am involved in local politics, and yes, that works fine. But we're not talking about local politics. We're talking about federal politics, and you have no idea what you're talking about there.
It is wrong because the list only has your name, like the no-fly list, the no-buy list, the no-employ list, and no doubt a host of other lists. It is wrong because the government is composed of a bunch of incompetents that don't have to be right, because they don't suffer when they are wrong by either punishment or loss of profit. It is wrong because 1 in 6 jury convictions is wrong. You don't want to get your nose in the gears, much less what you amusingly refer to as your "fat ass."
Uprisings are by far more abusive, than anything an elected government can do. If you try something stupid like an uprising, I promise, I'll get my fat ass off the couch, call my police, and proceed to whack some sense into your little head until they arrive...
I'd love to have seen you try to tell that to the founding fathers. Uprisings clearly have their place. Your threatening rhetoric notwithstanding.
This country has been this way for a long time -- Roosevelt knowingly authorized illegal eavesdropping of suspected German saboteurs in 1940, for example. Yet any predictions of the "police state" arriving next year have remained just that -- predictions...
No, that was the police state. The same police state that captured and unjustly imprisoned all the innocent citizens of Japanese descent. The same police state that shot (though I prefer to be forthright and just say "murdered") the students at Kent State. The same police state that creates and imposes constitutionally forbidden ex post facto laws. The same police state that enforced prohibition. The same police state that tells citizens they can't display banners. The same police state that tells citizens they can't speak within X feet of privileged events and locales. The same police state that restricts what can be said on the radio, and restricts access to broadcasts to the monied and the government. The same police state that determines what is, and what isn't, a "valid" religion. The same police state that tells citizens what they can and cannot do with their own bodies and with consenting adults. The same police state that forbids assisted suicide. The same police state that did illegal eavesdropping then, and now. The same police state that has held citizens prisoner for years without access to counsel, much less a hearing. The same police state that sterilized people based on "fitness." The same police state that disseminates vile propaganda about sexuality, drugs and more. Predictions of imminent arrival are wrong, but only because they're been in power for quite a few decades now.
Look, maybe you should just grab your bag of chips and sit back down on your couch if this stuff is over your head. Unless you are really serious about threatening me, in which case, you are cordially invited to my martial arts school, where I will be happy to tie you into a knot even a sailor couldn't untie — without even hurting you. It's no trouble really, just a standard ju do and chin na demo I use on street toughs of all sizes to ensure I have their attention when they get mouthy. Sounds like you could use a little lesson in humility anyway.
By the way, note that I'm not saying the court case didn't happen; what I'm saying is that the courts could just have easily set 450 mph as the speed limit, which would have cleanly solved the problem the court identified, left the drivers in the same condition (no effective speed limit), and put the troopers right back where they were, which was watching for reckless driving.
The reason that didn't happen, and also why 75 MPH was selected, was pressure from the feds.
That makes a nice story, but it isn't what happened (wikipedia isn't exactly the bastion of reporting accuracy, either.) They just knuckled under to an outright threat. I was very active in the speed limit thing here, and it was absolutely impossible to make any headway in the face of the federal leverage. Same thing with RealID, really; the feds want the states to pay for it, and we're hearing a lot of high-minded rhetoric from the states, especially poorer states like Montana, about how this is "unamerican"; but if the feds change their tune so that it is a federally funded operation, you watch how fast the states get in line for their share of the pie. There is no stronger bludgeon than money when it comes to government.
...and it's not like the people here before us weren't the descendants of immigrants themselves, either. No one has a legitimate claim to this land that isn't based upon force. No one. The ones with the most force are the ones who currently hold it. Which is pretty much the same everywhere. People who don't like it can start building a force of their own and see how well they do. But the peoples laughably called "native americans" have no better claim to the lands of this continent than the europeans did. Maybe less; like other less developed peoples who were displaced before them and by various groups of them, they were manifestly unprepared to deal with a more organized, more technically adept society bent on expansion. Nations are notorious for being unsympathetic to "I was here first" as a legitimate land claim. As exemplified by Russia's recent annexation of areas by the north pole.
Mind you, I have no objection whatsoever to immigrants. I think we need them, I think we're mistreating them, and I think this "build a wall" idea is one of the most stupid ideas I have ever heard. That's because I don't see a particular difference between a guy who was born here, as opposed to a guy who was born there. I think the entire idea is just unethical class prejudice masquerading as something noble. My family's been here since 1634; that doesn't make me one bit more valuable than some Mexican dude. The very idea is stupidity on the hoof.
Yes, of course - my point is that with RealID, they'll be able to do a lot more; they've already demonstrated their intentions are evil (ex post facto law, permanent declassing, commerce clause inversion, torture, habeas corpus violation, land theft, federal blackmailing of the states), and I see no ethical reason to willingly support any further power grabs.
What little privacy you have protects you from lists of every kind; if they don't know who you are, they can't match you with a list, can they? But if they know who you are because the RFID in your RealID has identified you four feet away from their counter, they can get right after abusing you even if you weren't heading for the counter in the first place. This isn't like a cop looking at your license plate and entering it in because you were breaking the law; this is going to be automatic. You walk by, you get scanned, and the terminal goes DING!
Giving up more privacy is a bad idea. Really. Watch and see — because this crap is coming down the pike. Nothing you or I can do without an actual uprising is going to stop it. This country is far too comfortable, its citizens too selfish, too apathetic, too downright ignorant, for an uprising to arrive before a considerable number of further abuses do.
Public schools are an arm of congress. They exist because of congressionally made laws, and they act as a proxy for the government in everything they do. That's why they can't delve into religion, etc. If your assertion is that a public school can do anything it wants to a student for actions the student takes outside the school's physical boundaries and outside of the period the school is overseeing the student, including things constitutionally forbidden, then you've fallen off the end of the pier and hit your head on the stone of cluelessness.
If you want your kid to be subject to a school's rules extending beyond the bounds of the restrictions on government activities, send them to a private school. That's a good deal of why they exist. You should have that choice. But as long as they are going to a public government school, the school will obey the constitution to the letter or be in violation of the highest law in the land. The school has no right to make such a choice. No matter what sophistry those idiots currently in SCOTUS come up with.
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So... are you saying it's OK to lock out two guys in a basement?
My point was that "little" meant that $6000 meant something to the development budget, and that isn't necessarily something that goes by employee count. If the budget is fixed and not very large, then six grand might be a deal breaker. If the "company" is a person is doing something in the evening after work, and getting six grand means no rent money, which is certainly a common scenario, then again we have a deal breaker. The presumption that six grand means nothing is meaningless, really, because the range of contexts varies all over the map. Which was my point. If you're at the moneyed end of the map, or have total control and six grand to spare, then you're golden, as long as the lawyers approve of it, of course. If you're some guy trying to get free of the mouse wheel, you may be in deep trouble and that was really who I was hand-waving about when I made the remark about this model favoring both ends, but not the "small guy."
They're extremely portable, m. Pitabred. They're compiled and running on windows, (red hat)linux, and OSX. Older versions - no longer developed for - run under Amiga OS, Be, every major version of Windows since WIndows 95 including RISC NT MIPS, Alpha, and PowerPC, all of which present their own problems. Our windows stuff also lives happily and easily under Parallels for OSX, and I would presume that Wine would work as we use a minimal set of OS calls. Do you have any other presumptions^W questions I can shoot down in flames ^W^W^W^W answer?
As a matter of fact, we did. A stank old PowerPC mini, in fact. So? The only thing the mini lacks as a development platform is an already installed copy of the development system, but it is on the release DVD, so it's only the work of a minute or two to get it over there, after which you can code your silly head off. We saw no reason to get anything more robust than a mini, and after having seen the port go so smoothly, I'd say that was exactly the right decision.
No, it really isn't. LGPL is the only general solution right now for a typical commercial application, and it presents problems with IP; specifically, section 4d, which boils down to providing code for the user to recompile that links to the LGPL'd libraries (not likely with most commercial IP models), or depending on the fact that the user has the library on their system already, which you can't do, because if they don't, your app, and therefore your whole commercial premise, is down the drain. A commercial application has to be install and run. Anything more than that and complications and problems ensue. Either way, because there is a license involved, legal has to sign off on it and that takes time, money, and can in some cases bring the entire process to a halt when legal won't sign off on something the license requires (such as source code distribution.)
Here is 4D for reference, emphasis mine:
Hopefully - and I can't speak authoritatively on this, but hopefully - the release version of OSX/Leopard will be fully scalable and both you and I will get some relief for our eyes.
Perhaps not; however, consider the OSX widget library cost to use and develop for: $0. Consider the Windows widget library cost to use and develop for: $0.
When you put it in that light, and you have a limited development budget, $6000, or worse, $6000 a seat, does tend to at least spawn a meeting or two where something else has to be traded for that capability. That may not be possible, especially for small developers. And isn't that kind of funny? Linux's GUI development environment favors free at the one end, and deep-pocket folk at the other, while locking out the small guys. Seems... I dunno, sort of un-linuxy.
We don't do server apps, and we considered linux quite seriously.
We have abandoned windows as a development platform, but it wasn't linux that replaced it, it was OSX. Linux's lack of a standard GUI layer in the OS - modern menus, buttons, lists, even windows - is the primary issue for us. There are lots of things that are very attractive about linux, not the least of which is a large user base that we think would have an interest in some of the things we can offer, and so we do keep an eye on what is going on. But there is a long history of independent widget development projects with quite a range of capabilities, licenses and corresponding legal issues, and in some cases, prices for commercial use; there's no certainty there will ever be a standard graphics layer. In my opinion, which is only one fellow's outlook (though I do control my company's direction) this is a key factor.
Both Microsoft and Apple have some pretty nice interface builders; that'd be a factor too, presuming that the embedded graphics eventually gets past xwindows and user-land layers on top of it. And by the way, I'm not advocating any of that be dropped; just that a standard be added to the OS that anyone can use in any way without any issues, just as one can use the fopen() call and know it'll be there and neither legal nor accounting will have to be called because the call was used.
The way I see it, manor/manner is a misspelling, they are nearly homonyms in middle American English, it was easy to understand what he meant. Rife and ripe aren't homonyms unless your lips have been amputated or you just got back from the dentist. I was attempting to be helpful, not annoying. YMMV.
The moderator clearly thinks that copyright issues are off-topic with regard to the GPL.
Has slashdot found a way to intentionally select moderators with IQ's under 100?
Come on. Slashdot luminaries have unlimited mod points. Where the heck are they when the system is clearly being abused? I'm not saying I deserved an up-mod, but to be modded down out of sight for a serious, on-topic post — that's just ludicrous.
Very interesting, thank you.
In the USA, I see multiple sets of cascading problems.
One has nodes at lawsuit/tort law, liability insurance for medical professionals and institutions, and what I consider to be unacceptably harsh conditions involved in learning medicine, resulting a scarcity of what the law would consider qualified professionals. These all contribute enormously (and unnecessarily IMHO) to base costs.
Another set has nodes at uninsurables (for instance, someone who has been diagnosed with diabetes... they can't get insurance at any rational cost), at scammers (naturopaths to chiropractors to new-agerery to colloidal silver hawkers to GNC stores), at the insurance industry's unwillingness to take on or incorporate higher risk situations into the general pools, and at the actual inability for a very large percentage of the country to afford major medical costs of any kind.
While I agree with you that healthcare is not a right, either in the sense of a constitutionally enumerated or even derived right or in the sense of an abstract human right, I think it can be accurately described as a need and in that sense, it is very nearly universal, so much so that I am comfortable just saying "health care is a universal need."
Under the present circumstances, in addition to being a universal need, healthcare is extremely expensive, far beyond the ability of the majority of individuals to cope with the costs of any sudden serious medical service. I could sit in judgement of why this is so, but I think that is somewhat pointless at this juncture.
The fact is, if your average citizen was suddenly handed a diagnosis of breast cancer, the thirty grand we were just billed for my sweetheart's radiation, remote housing, radiology and path studies, lumpectomy and follow-ups would take said citizen from the knife-edge of a month to month budget right into bankruptcy, presuming they could not afford insurance. And this was something that they had an established procedure to deal with, involved only about an hour of surgery, and 6 weeks of ten minutes a day of 20+MeV radiation therapy. Imagine the bill if we were trying to deal with a metastasized cancer, or if her diabetes had caused some kind of serious complications. Insurance? Not an option. Deb is a diabetic.
Then there is well-care. We (Deb, they're mine by osmosis) have three boys, aged 30, 26, and 20. When the 30-year old was born, Deb was making about $5.00 an hour. Having the kid was $250 to the doctor, and $250 to the hospital for a normal birth. When the 26-year old was born by complication-free cesarian, she was still making $5.00 an hour, but the doctor got $1200, and the hospital about $2400. When the 20 year old was born, also by complication-free cesarian, she was making $5.50 an hour, the doctor got $5000, and the hospital got $5000. All three births were in Wyoming. Those bills were all paid without insurance, because Deb is a diabetic, and basically uninsurable. But they were paid; while these were unplanned and attempts were made to avoid them (she was on birth control all three times) pregnancies are never actually accidents — if you don't want a kid, simply don't have intercourse, it is totally avoidable — and Deb is a responsible human being.
So on the one hand, we have need, and on the other, we have costs not really coming from medical care, but out of the legal system and out of the insurance industry on two levels. People get sick and care is strongly desired for entirely understandable reasons - physical distress isn't something easily mediated by trying to rationalize your position. Most people can't afford such care on a sudden basis, and we really don't know who will need what, clearly some people get all the way through life without any incidents at all, while others fall ill or become injured repeatedly. Pooling finds from everyone such that as fate lets us know who is actually going to need the care seems to me to be a rational, reasonable
That's exactly what I was looking for; thank you. I'll be tucking the references away; it always helps to have explicatory commentary from an author of the document.
Now: What about states providing healthcare, for instance by collecting a tax similar in intent to worker's compensation, such that people's healthcare is paid for? This, then, would be a power devolved upon a state, pretty much as per the constitution. In this way, the middleman (insurers) is done away with, as well as a good deal of the official paths for profit motive from people's misfortune.
Do you object to that kind of plan?
No. The constitution is literally the constituting authority from which all legitimate federal activity and organization derives. It is a critical and very specific link in how the federal government may act, and how it may not. The 14th amendment transfers some of that to the states, specifically the bill of rights.
Everything that the government does that is not able to trace its authorization back to the constitution, is literally illegal and and unauthorized.
The constitution provides the means for alteration; if new authority is desired, or old authority is to be discarded, then such alteration must be performed.
It is law, it is literally and specifically the "highest law in the land."
Would you at least, for my benefit and others who do concern ourselves with the constitution, outline why you consider that article one, section eight, first paragraph, would not be considered to authorize federalized health care?
I'm all for constitutional adherence, and I can see a lot of risk in assigning any more of the health care system to the feds, but it seems to me that the general welfare of the US is predicated directly upon the health of its citizens, just as it is their education, ability to conduct commerce, travel, and so on. And you say?
I believe you'll find the counter argument is based right here:
If you're going to argue against it, that's what you have to address. You can't just say there is no such charter in the constitution, because it appears that there may be.
Governments accrue power. That is usually their "main thing". The way to get there differs though. "Socialized medicine" is government. You see the problem here?
Seriously, I'm the first to say that we should stop using for-profit middlemen (insurance companies) and work with some kind of pool that does not seek to enrich itself by failing to provide healthcare. The idea that someone with a diagnosis of diabetes is completely uninsurable is horrifying to contemplate, as are many other artifacts of the current system. But the government has done the worst possible job at just about everything I can think of offhand where it has taken a role. From parks to radio to immigration to threat management to even handling pool money - social security for example. I am extremely cynical that giving the government any part of this would work out well.
I can't speak for canada, but in the US, the government is the least competent, and most dangerous, and most coercive, large entity I know of.
I believe you may have meant: "...I read the story, it is rife with allegations of..."
Actually, since the constitution was not written by, contracted to be written by, signed by, participated in, or otherwise involved with currently living rank and file US citizens, it has absolutely no bearing on what said rank and file citizen does, or does not, do.
Furthermore, it isn't a document that was ever aimed at US citizens, directly or indirectly. It is a document that specifies the limits within which the federal government may act.
It extends to the state governments to the extent that the 14th amendment requires the states to comply with the bill of rights, that is, amendments one through ten.
No contract your father signs can make you liable to the terms of the contract without your signature. You have to sign it. So even if the constitution directed US citizens to do (or not to do) A, B and C, you still wouldn't be obligated to obey those stipulations by virtue of the constitution itself.
The fact that the government has implemented copyright law is the only issue with any merit, and the only merit involved is that the government is prepared to enforce said law(s) using coercive force.
The (current) government's obligation to the constitution survives and transitions forward based upon oath and affirmation, as for example, the president's oath where he swears to...
The series of oaths can be found here.
This whole "social contract" thing is nonsense, and always has been.
Well, look at what they're doing now. They put your name on the no-fly list. Not your SSN or other info, just your name. You show up, want a ticket - and they deny it. Now, it isn't like you can't produce your ID info; maybe birth certificate, license, etc. They're not interested in it - you simply can't fly because someone, somewhere, got your name (or someone else's name) on that list. All the ID in the world won't help UNLESS it is false ID and so you avoid your real name.
Now lets look at RealID. It has all manner of stuff; but they only have the name on the no-fly list, so that's all they compare. So you can't fly. No benefit there. The difference is that it is a lot harder to fly anonymously, because getting a fake RealID is going to be both tough, and illegal. But that's not all. Because it contains tech like RFID, it is constantly telling any device that listens who you are. If you wrap it in foil or something like that and manage to prevent it from talking to the various nearby systems, it'll still burp when you take it out, and of course, if you walk through a RealID enabled arch, that system will flag you because you don't broadcast when it expects you to.
So the end result is (a) you still can't fly, (b) the people at the counter know, or can know, a lot more about you, (c) every transgression you commit will follow you everywhere, (d) your ability to be anonymous is gone, (e) your identity can now be compromised by anyone with access to the system.
The problem is not, and never has been, that the average citizen can't prove who they are, or come up with all manner of documentation. Most everyone can, of course. The problem is that the government isn't using all that to blacklist citizens. It is just using names. Getting a RealID won't change this behavior, because it isn't the citizen that is short on data, it is the list of names. Could the government use SSNs and so forth on these lists? Sure. And that would help. But they don't. Why would they suddenly start doing so if you had a RealID? RealID doesn't address the problem area, which is that the government is compromising people based on lists that have very scanty information. They could 100% fix that problem now, without resorting to RealID or anything like it. So if it is a fix here you are looking for, then don't look at, or support, RealID. Just tell your congresscritter that the government needs to stop with the vague name-only lists on the one hand, and on the other, provide a judicial process by which a name gets on such a list, because this guy in a back room who can remove your ability to fly without any oversight is an affront to liberty, a travesty.
No, since the entire war against iraq was illegitimate, Saddam was not a legitimate target. LoAC is not an excuse to go to war, it is a limitation on how war is waged. We had no legitimate reason to attack Iraq in this case. None whatsoever. So citing LoAC is an utterly empty thing to do.
It certainly can be, if they don't have probable cause relating directly to a known law or a warrant, or for that matter, jurisdiction. What, do you think they are delegated by god and cannot do wrong? Likewise, what the feds can do legitimately is limited. If you think it isn't, you are simply wrong.
A perfectly adequate reason to disband them. Also a perfectly adequate reason for other countries to treat the CIA, and our country in general, roughly. Which is not a good thing, and something we should seek to avoid. Again, another perfectly adequate reason to disband the CIA.
What people are doing is irrelevant to us, unless they are doing it here. If they are doing it here, we have the tools to deal with them. If they aren't doing whatever they are doing here, they're not our problem. If they come here and do something, we are entitled to go after them, as any country would be. However, that is specifically not the case with the present Iraq war. We are not the world's policeman, and we have perfectly adequate means to police situations within our own borders and on the seas nearby. Stepping outside our own borders without extreme provocation makes us criminals.
Look. The fact that people have been murdering other people for millennia doesn't make it OK for you to go out and murder someone. Citing the wrongdoing of Kennedy or Christ or whomever makes no difference whatsoever to our current situation. We aren't obligated to stop because of precedent or lack of it; we're obligated to stop because what we are doing is wrong.
I am involved in local politics, and yes, that works fine. But we're not talking about local politics. We're talking about federal politics, and you have no idea what you're talking about there.
It is wrong because the list only has your name, like the no-fly list, the no-buy list, the no-employ list, and no doubt a host of other lists. It is wrong because the government is composed of a bunch of incompetents that don't have to be right, because they don't suffer when they are wrong by either punishment or loss of profit. It is wrong because 1 in 6 jury convictions is wrong. You don't want to get your nose in the gears, much less what you amusingly refer to as your "fat ass."
I'd love to have seen you try to tell that to the founding fathers. Uprisings clearly have their place. Your threatening rhetoric notwithstanding.
No, that was the police state. The same police state that captured and unjustly imprisoned all the innocent citizens of Japanese descent. The same police state that shot (though I prefer to be forthright and just say "murdered") the students at Kent State. The same police state that creates and imposes constitutionally forbidden ex post facto laws. The same police state that enforced prohibition. The same police state that tells citizens they can't display banners. The same police state that tells citizens they can't speak within X feet of privileged events and locales. The same police state that restricts what can be said on the radio, and restricts access to broadcasts to the monied and the government. The same police state that determines what is, and what isn't, a "valid" religion. The same police state that tells citizens what they can and cannot do with their own bodies and with consenting adults. The same police state that forbids assisted suicide. The same police state that did illegal eavesdropping then, and now. The same police state that has held citizens prisoner for years without access to counsel, much less a hearing. The same police state that sterilized people based on "fitness." The same police state that disseminates vile propaganda about sexuality, drugs and more. Predictions of imminent arrival are wrong, but only because they're been in power for quite a few decades now.
Look, maybe you should just grab your bag of chips and sit back down on your couch if this stuff is over your head. Unless you are really serious about threatening me, in which case, you are cordially invited to my martial arts school, where I will be happy to tie you into a knot even a sailor couldn't untie — without even hurting you. It's no trouble really, just a standard ju do and chin na demo I use on street toughs of all sizes to ensure I have their attention when they get mouthy. Sounds like you could use a little lesson in humility anyway.
By the way, note that I'm not saying the court case didn't happen; what I'm saying is that the courts could just have easily set 450 mph as the speed limit, which would have cleanly solved the problem the court identified, left the drivers in the same condition (no effective speed limit), and put the troopers right back where they were, which was watching for reckless driving.
The reason that didn't happen, and also why 75 MPH was selected, was pressure from the feds.
That makes a nice story, but it isn't what happened (wikipedia isn't exactly the bastion of reporting accuracy, either.) They just knuckled under to an outright threat. I was very active in the speed limit thing here, and it was absolutely impossible to make any headway in the face of the federal leverage. Same thing with RealID, really; the feds want the states to pay for it, and we're hearing a lot of high-minded rhetoric from the states, especially poorer states like Montana, about how this is "unamerican"; but if the feds change their tune so that it is a federally funded operation, you watch how fast the states get in line for their share of the pie. There is no stronger bludgeon than money when it comes to government.
Mind you, I have no objection whatsoever to immigrants. I think we need them, I think we're mistreating them, and I think this "build a wall" idea is one of the most stupid ideas I have ever heard. That's because I don't see a particular difference between a guy who was born here, as opposed to a guy who was born there. I think the entire idea is just unethical class prejudice masquerading as something noble. My family's been here since 1634; that doesn't make me one bit more valuable than some Mexican dude. The very idea is stupidity on the hoof.
Yes, of course - my point is that with RealID, they'll be able to do a lot more; they've already demonstrated their intentions are evil (ex post facto law, permanent declassing, commerce clause inversion, torture, habeas corpus violation, land theft, federal blackmailing of the states), and I see no ethical reason to willingly support any further power grabs.
What little privacy you have protects you from lists of every kind; if they don't know who you are, they can't match you with a list, can they? But if they know who you are because the RFID in your RealID has identified you four feet away from their counter, they can get right after abusing you even if you weren't heading for the counter in the first place. This isn't like a cop looking at your license plate and entering it in because you were breaking the law; this is going to be automatic. You walk by, you get scanned, and the terminal goes DING!
Giving up more privacy is a bad idea. Really. Watch and see — because this crap is coming down the pike. Nothing you or I can do without an actual uprising is going to stop it. This country is far too comfortable, its citizens too selfish, too apathetic, too downright ignorant, for an uprising to arrive before a considerable number of further abuses do.
Public schools are an arm of congress. They exist because of congressionally made laws, and they act as a proxy for the government in everything they do. That's why they can't delve into religion, etc. If your assertion is that a public school can do anything it wants to a student for actions the student takes outside the school's physical boundaries and outside of the period the school is overseeing the student, including things constitutionally forbidden, then you've fallen off the end of the pier and hit your head on the stone of cluelessness.
If you want your kid to be subject to a school's rules extending beyond the bounds of the restrictions on government activities, send them to a private school. That's a good deal of why they exist. You should have that choice. But as long as they are going to a public government school, the school will obey the constitution to the letter or be in violation of the highest law in the land. The school has no right to make such a choice. No matter what sophistry those idiots currently in SCOTUS come up with.