the federal government to pay the victor all legal expenses incurred + any time off work for court + any travel expenses for court, times three, within 30 days of the official ruling.
Where does the federal government get the money to pay for this? Oh, that's right, the taxpayers. So, the taxpayers will be paying for the mistakes of a poor USPTO system. No, I think a better solution would instead be to fire the patent officer responsible for approving it and immediately invalidate every patent that that officer had previously approved (even "valid" ones, if such things exist).
I think after just a few of these, along with some big companies getting bitten hard by the suddenly invalidated patents, would cause quality control to skyrocket.
I'm not against doing both though I'm not sure that'd be necessary. Our only difference is that I believe the government should repair any financial damage it causes to a citizen due to its incompetence. I believe that out of principle. If the principle is sound then a decent implementation of it can have a desirable effect. That means I can also give you a more pragmatic reason for my position.
Good legal representation is expensive. The corporations with deep pockets can already afford to litigate; if anything they are a bit trigger-happy. The government reimbursing people who incur large debt for this purpose has one effect: it means that more people have more access to a legal system that's supposed to apply equally to everyone. A person's willingness to litigate would then depend only on their confidence in their case. If they are clearly wronged and have ample evidence to prove it then the legal expenses would not stop them. They could not be bullied into an unwanted settlement by an opposition who knows they don't have the resources to pursue the case.
I really do hate this, 90% of politicians are lawyers.
They are an unchecked self-appointing cancer.
The remedy for this is simple enough. If a patent is found invalid by a court and also should never have been granted according to the USPTO's own rules at that time, then require the federal government to pay the victor all legal expenses incurred + any time off work for court + any travel expenses for court, times three, within 30 days of the official ruling.
I also believe that anyone found "not guilty" in a criminal case, or who has charges dropped, should be compensated the same way.
That introduces an element of apoptosis into the self-appointing cancer.
The problem is that of course most people define "pragmatism" as "let me do what I want but anything I don't want to do that I dislike should be banned".
Agreed and I would be hard-pressed to put it more succinctly. I'd like to add one thing to that: it follows that the more accurate term for this behavior is plain old "selfishness" and that this means most people are trying to legitimize it with the euphamism of "pragmatism". The irony is that an effort to legitimize something is an unstated admission that it is not legitimate. If they don't realize they are doing this, I'd call it denial. If they do realize they are doing this, I'd call it deceit.
In politics, the general pattern is that there are very large numbers of those in denial who are led by those who are deceitful. Since they are consciously aware of what is happening, the deceitful have the advantage. That's why they always represent what is institutionalized, established, and entrenched. Any feeble electoral backlash that may remain is neatly covered by apathy and with it, a sense of demoralization. Of course politicians lie. They all do, so what's the difference? Right?
People who think "pragmatism" covers religious discrimination since they're sure we'd have much safer cities if everyone was a good *fill in whatever they believe the one true is here* and just went to *church/mosque/etc* every week and did what they were told.
If everyone learned to govern themselves they wouldn't need to be told what to do. That's what the sectarians refuse to understand. Laws and other forms of coercion are not needed by free people but free people are rare. Laws and religious authority and the like are for people who cannot control themselves and must resort to a fear of artificial consequences to contain their negativity.
"Government by the consent of the governed" and all similar ideas depend on the population never becoming so degenerate and selfish. Otherwise the saying that applies is the one about receiving exactly the kind of government we deserve.
>the problem arises when the children think it's fun/cool to use that language everywhere.
What problem? If that's how they want to express themselves, let them. They're just words for gods sake...
If people don't get offended about something, how can they feign injury and use that to justify their demands that others conform to their expectations? Why, they'd have to resort to being patient and tolerant (in the true sense) and to using their counter-example to protest against whatever it is they don't like. If that happened their egos might shrink and become less inflamed with fewer high horses to mount. They might see the petty power struggles for what they are, and they might enjoy life more once they stop participating in them and wasting so much energy on them.
Clearly we cannot allow this! We must reinforce the easily offended lifestyle. We clearly need to legitimize it with political power and by taking it seriously at all times. At all costs must make sure to never tell anyone to grow up and get over any otherwise harmless thing that offends them. Any authority figure must especially take seriously and whenever possible, kowtow to whoever screams the loudest with no regard for the actual legitimacy of their grievance. Young people must grow up seeing the repeated examples of parents, schools, and media who model this behavior and never question or critically examine it, because then it will be normal and all they've ever known. That's the precedent we want to set and the message we will send.
Otherwise people might adopt a "live and let live" philosophy otherwise known as freedom, and might get the idea in their heads that there's something wrong with so much concern for what other adults want to read, listen to, watch, or what games they play. Shit man, they might even think it's good enough that they can choose such things for themselves and that it's proper to allow other adults to do the same.
If we allowed that, then the next thing you know, entire political campaigns and party platforms will have to find some other basis. The tacit assumption that "they must be up to no good" might shift to the busybodies and away from those who want to be left alone by them. This could really spiral out of control! It would become difficult to try to legislate morality. It could even lead to more people believing that it's silly to blame any of our problems on inanimate objects, and with that goes the War on (some) Drugs and all the great justifications for expanded police powers that it has faithfully provided all of these years.
So you see, Australia must stay the course. If they allowed a category intended for adults and restricted to adults, it'd be a small and seemingly harmless step down a very slippery slope. Do you know what's at the bottom of that slippery slope? Why, a world where other people might say or do things that someone else doesn't like. Do you understand now the danger that we are in?
I don't think you understand that there is no "18 related films" and none is being proposed.
Why isn't it about the government trying to help parents?
If it were about trying to help parents, there'd be a category for adults. Then the parent can choose age-appropriate titles and adults can still get the apps they want. There isn't a category for adults. That's why this is not about trying to help parents. This is about censoring adults in the name of helping parents. If you think helping parents is a good thing then this is a mockery of it, a smack in the face.
Oh, I forgot, the fucking libertarians have taken over the asylum, so if it's done by the government it's necessarily evil.
No real libertarian would support censoring adults. Especially not when having an adult category does not negate the usefulness of all the other categories. Adding an adult category would be cost-free in the sense that it wouldn't hinder any of the stated goals of this proposal. The omission of it is either institutionalized stupidity or a deliberate attempt to censor. Both can be called evil.
I am quite familiar with the topic. I simply attribute such things to market forces while you are attributing them to a social agenda. Different motivation, same net result.
I don't see those as mutually exclusive. What may have begun as a market force has been in high gear for about three generations now. It was not questioned and therefore accepted as normal by most. Now it's become a sort of orthodoxy and only its "faithful" seem to get promoted to prominent positions in mainstream media. That makes it equivalent to a social agenda.
I see no contradiction because social agenda is the "what" and perhaps market forces are the "why" or the "how". I question that last part, though, because a few things weaken it.
There is not a lot of diversity of content among the mainstream television news networks. There is very little diversity of ownership of them. The content and coverage are amazingly uniform. Where they compete it's in the form of who can hire the hottest women to be the news anchors.
Other forms of media that also compete for "hard news" consumers like talk radio and Web sites have a much wider range of viewpoints and decisions about what gets covered. So if you want something that qualitatively competes with the mainstream television news offerings, you have to go to another type of media entirely.
I don't see the vigorous competition for viewers that would make market forces the dominant influence, though I don't discount them entirely. Because of that and because of other things I see that are difficult to substantiate, it's clear to me that there is a better explanation.
I would less call it 'censored' and more selectively reported in order to appeal to viewers, since viewers are what drive advertising revenue. People generally do not want to hear bad things about their country unless it is bad things they can attribute to people they already do not like.. and when they do, they vote with their dollars and view elsewhere.
No conspiracy or control needed.. just simple economics and self interest on the part of the networks.
EIther way the media controls public opinion and the media is driven by an agenda. In some ways a conspiracy would be "better" since it would likely make mistakes at some point. No, this is worse. This is the work of "true believers". A conspirator in the usual sense knows he is lying, knows he is up to no good, has to keep his story straight. None of that applies to a true believer who can see it no other way.
If you want a fascinating look at the way our media is, just do some research on how they report anything remotely gun-control related. A person legally carrying a firearm stops a crime? The news media says "the attacker was subdued until police arrived". A criminal illegally uses a gun to commit a crime? You get the detailed, moment-by-moment account of the struggle, because guns are bad and independent action even worse, mmkay? There is a definite agenda. It carries a definitely discernable message. One or two stories here and there are one thing but this pattern is amazingly consistent. So are many others. Really, look up this topic and see for yourself how egregious it really is. I am not remotely beginning to describe the depth of it.
Well, people lie. People representing companies lie even more.
On the other hand, most folks lie all the time, don't they. They caught a fish THIS big, or their penis is SO long. Oh well, there goes the last bit of faith that I had in humanity. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
I'd say the faith belongs in sound principles that humans can acknowledge and appreciate or fail to acknowledge and appreciate. It's a good start, anyway.
the average person isn't paying attention and even supposedly technically knowledgeable people do not understand the language enough to see the weaseling before they sign up
None of this is difficult to understand. None! If it seems as though no one understands, it's just because it's accepted as normal.
It's something like apathy. That isn't a problem you can solve by throwing more IQ points at it.
Is it about understanding Open Source? Or giving credit where credit is due?
I think a central part of the Open Source philosophy is that giving credit where it's due is secondary to the goal of developing better tools for users. This is why OSS licenses allow forks to be developed without the authorization of the person to whom credit is due.
The author's choice to use the GPL is their authorization. If they consider it critical to prevent this, there are a multitude of other licenses that could be used. The credit given is that this is done openly; there is no mystery about who originally started a project that was later forked.
"No credit given" would be more like taking a major OSS project, forking it and making minor changes, and then claiming to be the author of the entire new project. That's not part of the GPL. It'd also be highly unethical.
I'm not sure if I would say that credit is secondary. I'd say that the concern about it is addressed in a healthy way. Renown and respect for one's skills has to be at least a partial motivator for at least some OSS developers along with the more altruistic motivations.
It's okay. drinkypoo is a known troll. He sometimes posts a good argument and then starts replying contradicting arguments and spews flamebait to try to get more responses under his thread. Once his thread has been replied to frequently, he is modded up as the parent/originator. Nice, cheap way to get a karma boost. Check his post frequency. You would think that he doesn't have anything else to do but troll Slashdot.
If we're going to have trolls they may as well be good at it. Beats the hell out of GNAA crapflooding.
>"Loose lips sink ships" was a common saying during World War II
And today we know *way* too much, in way too much detail, about the location and movement of troops, their morale, reports of their actions, etc.
Much of which could be disinformation and/or propaganda. Much of which could be too general or too outdated to be of tactical or strategic value. War is about a great deal more than bullets and bombs. I think it's a safe wager that the truly important stuff is classified and the info carried by mainstream news networks is thoroughly intended for public consumption.
So I don't think this is something to worry about. Governments may be incompetent and slow to deal with many things, but if there's anything they are particularly good at and downright trigger-happy about, it's anything related to national security.
I don't think it's so much that people automatically trust each other, although that's certainly the case sometimes, it's more like it never occurs to too many people, unfortunately, that what they divulge could cause problems in the wrong hands.
The common (or if you like, baser) term for this is "stupidity".
For many years now, when someone asks me for information, my first thought is not to give the information, but to consider why I don't want to give it to that person. And I don't consider myself particularly paranoid with respect to what I share.
I wouldn't call that "paranoid". I'd call it "responsible".
It gets tiring after awhile. Modern life in the 21st century requires a level of vigilance regarding information that probably never existed outside of the military, national security apparatus, law enforcement or some elements of business before a couple decades ago.
I consider privacy to be a type of freedom. I mean privacy in a very broad sense, including things like not being hit by an identity thief. Freedom has always required vigilance because the mechanisms used to compromise it seem innocuous until they are well-established. The nature of that struggle is just progressing from muskets to information, that's all. Otherwise there have always been cutpurses and common thugs, organized criminals, corrupt governments, and other parasites.
One of my passwords awhile back had very nit-picky rules for passwords.
Your passwords have very nit-picky rules for passwords? That's cosmic. Is that a Zen thing, like maybe a koan?
"But Master, how can a password create its own rules if it does not yet exist?"
"When you can tell me the sound of one hand clapping, then you will understand."
Is it about understanding Open Source? Or giving credit where credit is due?
I don't really view that as an either-or scenario. As a user of a great deal of Open Source software, I'd file "understanding Open Source" under the general heading of "giving credit where it is due".
I'm not saying the guys at Ubuntu just sit there and do nothing, but Debian deserves way more than being called "the distro Ubuntu is based on".
Anyone who would deny the tremendous influence Debian has had on the Open Source community is simply ignorant of the facts and, therefore, wrong. It'd be easy enough to correct them. I don't see that as some kind of threat to any notion of what they do or don't deserve, perhaps because I have none. I just appreciate it as it is, confident that ignorance won't survive even a cursory effort to find fact. I suppose I'd make a terrible fanboy.
Note, I don't even use Debian today, though I did use it sometime around 1998-1999.
you say that government wants to expand, but really it's an unholy alliance of government and private industry. The corruption of government by industry has made it less responsive to the needs of the government.
A government responsive to the citizens wouldn't be able to grow, or engage in such oppressive behavior without the backing of industry. Or don't you remember the military being brought out to try and crush unions ?
I would say it's a matter of whom the government represents. A good government represents its people and treats them all relatively equally. A corrupt government fails to represent its people because more wealth and power can be had by (as you put it) unholy alliances with unscrupulous people in industry.
Either way, you aren't going to get the military to do much of anything without government's blessing.
It's really quite sad that the world learned nothing from the US' futile attempt to outlaw alcohol in the 1920's.
If you look at it another way, they learned quite a bit. They learned that there are few better justifications for the expansion of police power, a campaign issue that can be used whenever needed, the creation of new bureaucracies, etc. They later figured out that the sheer number of prosecutions resulting from various forms of prohibition were great for the private prison industry.
It's a terrible cycle, and one that can only be broken by regulation. They need to make drugs legal through special outlets stocked with health care workers, where people can safely obtain their drugs and use the proceeds to pay for the addiction specialists and treatment centers. There's nothing we can do except address the problem of addiction, and treat such users as patients, not criminals. Is it perfect? Probably not, but it's a start.
I am reminded of that quote about having abundant solar energy as soon as the utility companies solve one technical problem: how to run a sunbeam through a meter. I don't know how feasible abundant solar energy actually is, but this is a great caricacture of a mentality that needs to be understood. You're dealing with something just like it when you get down to the root of prohibition.
The government that wants to expand is only too happy to be asked to solve such "problems" but this goes unnoticed because too many people have their own reasons for supporting it. Your solution is reasonable and easily the best way to handle the whole affair. It doesn't deny the painfully obvious, which is that the way we have been approaching the issue doesn't work. You just have to solve one technical problem: how to address the visceral satisfaction some obtain from the suffering of anyone who offends their Puritannical views.
I'm not a really pro-gun person, but really, considering they're selling something that's illegal to make, traffic and sell... I can't see them having a hard time making, trafficking or selling guns either if they were illegal.
You're using logic. That is why you aren't screaming for more gun control and getting very upset that anyone out there might disagree with this. It's probably also why you aren't pretending that there are two equally viable viewpoints on this issue when in fact it's very simple: one is realistic and based on logic while the other is like a fairy tale and based on emotion and whim.
I hope the "second ammendment remedies" crowd is proud.
Where do you think the guns that fuel this bloodbath are coming from??
The guns that fuel Mexico's bloody drug war come from the United States of America, where we are apparently just a little too dumb for sensible gun control. I guess you never know when you will need an M-16 with a large clip to take down your own country's elected government. Nevermined the consequences or the fact that you would be dead before you even reloaded your weapon.
The drugs are completely illegal in both Mexico and the USA. How's that been working out when it comes to eliminating them? What makes you believe that making guns completely illegal in both countries is going to work out better? When we finally figure out a way to keep drugs out of highly controlled environments like prisons, maybe then we can worry about the US-Mexico border.
I'll never understand why anyone even humors positions like prohibition and gun control. We've tried both for a long time now, more than long enough to iron out any implementation errors. They simply don't work. Acknowledge that and maybe we can come up with something that might work.
Oh, and apparently tyrants everywhere do fear armed civilians. That's why Hitler and every other "successful" dictator made it a top priority to first disarm the citizens. There can be no more honest explanation of this than a hard look at what the tyrants themselves considered a threat to their rule.
You have the right to due process before the state takes away your life, liberty or property. You do not have the right to due process before the community can ridicule you. See, there's this thing called the 1st amendment. It means I can tell you and others what I think about you.
I have the right to say "fuck you, you're a god damned idiot". That doesn't make this a good, worthy, or noble thing to do. Now, that's a hypothetical. I'm not actually trying to insult you or call you an idiot but I wanted to make a point. If I used my free speech in that manner, it would say little or nothing about you while revealing quite a bit about me.
Sure, you can insult people with no fear that the law will stop you because of the 1st Amendment. But tell me, do you really need to have the 1st Amendment repealed and laws of censorship enacted before you would think twice about insulting someone who is presumed innocent until convicted? And if so, is that because you really see something wrong with that practice and found self-restraint? But in that case why did it take a censorship law to change your behavior? That's why you can use the 1st Amendment to cover up any non-existant legal challenges to this behavior, but that will never escape the objections to it that don't involve using the government to censor you.
If you believe in due process at all then you honor the principles behind it even if there is no law compelling you to do so. I mean fuck, if you won't believe or honor anything except under the threat of the force of law, your beliefs and your honor are quite worthless.
If I want the state to honor due process because due process is a sound principle, why would I suddenly consider it unsound when faced with a choice of whether I will personally honor due process? You see, that makes no sense. If I take a "do as I say, not as I do" attitude towards the state, then I'm a garden-variety hypocrite. I'd be a hypocrite because I would want it to represent principles that I myself refuse to even try to embody.
That kind of hypocrisy is the position of immature and self-serving people. Very simply, they want to be protected from a capricious state that can harm anyone it wants on a whim, because such a protection benefits them. They also want to be able to look down their nose at someone and judge that person as beneath them, because this (in one form or another) is extremely important to empty, hollow people who have no principles or nobility. For them there is only gratification and when they don't achieve it by making themselves higher, they do it by making someone else lower. So that also benefits them. By "benefit" I mean it feeds their childish mentality and makes sure they are never made to feel uncomfortable for having it. Thus, they give lip service to ideas like due process but routinely contradict it anytime they are not forced to honor it.
That's why this is about publically posting mugshots for arrests and not for convictions despite the fact that both approaches are equally practical. This and the whole "eighth-grade emotional level our nation is at" (to paraphrase Bill Hicks) is what you are defending.
You really don't see how this differs from a Facebook page?
No, he doesn't. Not if he doesn't want to. This is why so few debates actually remain civil or convince anyone of anything no matter how many facts are presented, no matter how sound the reasoning used.
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the federal government to pay the victor all legal expenses incurred + any time off work for court + any travel expenses for court, times three, within 30 days of the official ruling.
Where does the federal government get the money to pay for this? Oh, that's right, the taxpayers. So, the taxpayers will be paying for the mistakes of a poor USPTO system. No, I think a better solution would instead be to fire the patent officer responsible for approving it and immediately invalidate every patent that that officer had previously approved (even "valid" ones, if such things exist). I think after just a few of these, along with some big companies getting bitten hard by the suddenly invalidated patents, would cause quality control to skyrocket.
I'm not against doing both though I'm not sure that'd be necessary. Our only difference is that I believe the government should repair any financial damage it causes to a citizen due to its incompetence. I believe that out of principle. If the principle is sound then a decent implementation of it can have a desirable effect. That means I can also give you a more pragmatic reason for my position.
Good legal representation is expensive. The corporations with deep pockets can already afford to litigate; if anything they are a bit trigger-happy. The government reimbursing people who incur large debt for this purpose has one effect: it means that more people have more access to a legal system that's supposed to apply equally to everyone. A person's willingness to litigate would then depend only on their confidence in their case. If they are clearly wronged and have ample evidence to prove it then the legal expenses would not stop them. They could not be bullied into an unwanted settlement by an opposition who knows they don't have the resources to pursue the case.
I really do hate this, 90% of politicians are lawyers.
They are an unchecked self-appointing cancer.
The remedy for this is simple enough. If a patent is found invalid by a court and also should never have been granted according to the USPTO's own rules at that time, then require the federal government to pay the victor all legal expenses incurred + any time off work for court + any travel expenses for court, times three, within 30 days of the official ruling.
I also believe that anyone found "not guilty" in a criminal case, or who has charges dropped, should be compensated the same way.
That introduces an element of apoptosis into the self-appointing cancer.
Agreed and I would be hard-pressed to put it more succinctly. I'd like to add one thing to that: it follows that the more accurate term for this behavior is plain old "selfishness" and that this means most people are trying to legitimize it with the euphamism of "pragmatism". The irony is that an effort to legitimize something is an unstated admission that it is not legitimate. If they don't realize they are doing this, I'd call it denial. If they do realize they are doing this, I'd call it deceit.
In politics, the general pattern is that there are very large numbers of those in denial who are led by those who are deceitful. Since they are consciously aware of what is happening, the deceitful have the advantage. That's why they always represent what is institutionalized, established, and entrenched. Any feeble electoral backlash that may remain is neatly covered by apathy and with it, a sense of demoralization. Of course politicians lie. They all do, so what's the difference? Right?
If everyone learned to govern themselves they wouldn't need to be told what to do. That's what the sectarians refuse to understand. Laws and other forms of coercion are not needed by free people but free people are rare. Laws and religious authority and the like are for people who cannot control themselves and must resort to a fear of artificial consequences to contain their negativity.
"Government by the consent of the governed" and all similar ideas depend on the population never becoming so degenerate and selfish. Otherwise the saying that applies is the one about receiving exactly the kind of government we deserve.
Anyone who doesn't understand their electoral system and refuses to learn how it works has no business voting.
>the problem arises when the children think it's fun/cool to use that language everywhere.
What problem? If that's how they want to express themselves, let them. They're just words for gods sake...
If people don't get offended about something, how can they feign injury and use that to justify their demands that others conform to their expectations? Why, they'd have to resort to being patient and tolerant (in the true sense) and to using their counter-example to protest against whatever it is they don't like. If that happened their egos might shrink and become less inflamed with fewer high horses to mount. They might see the petty power struggles for what they are, and they might enjoy life more once they stop participating in them and wasting so much energy on them.
Clearly we cannot allow this! We must reinforce the easily offended lifestyle. We clearly need to legitimize it with political power and by taking it seriously at all times. At all costs must make sure to never tell anyone to grow up and get over any otherwise harmless thing that offends them. Any authority figure must especially take seriously and whenever possible, kowtow to whoever screams the loudest with no regard for the actual legitimacy of their grievance. Young people must grow up seeing the repeated examples of parents, schools, and media who model this behavior and never question or critically examine it, because then it will be normal and all they've ever known. That's the precedent we want to set and the message we will send.
Otherwise people might adopt a "live and let live" philosophy otherwise known as freedom, and might get the idea in their heads that there's something wrong with so much concern for what other adults want to read, listen to, watch, or what games they play. Shit man, they might even think it's good enough that they can choose such things for themselves and that it's proper to allow other adults to do the same.
If we allowed that, then the next thing you know, entire political campaigns and party platforms will have to find some other basis. The tacit assumption that "they must be up to no good" might shift to the busybodies and away from those who want to be left alone by them. This could really spiral out of control! It would become difficult to try to legislate morality. It could even lead to more people believing that it's silly to blame any of our problems on inanimate objects, and with that goes the War on (some) Drugs and all the great justifications for expanded police powers that it has faithfully provided all of these years.
So you see, Australia must stay the course. If they allowed a category intended for adults and restricted to adults, it'd be a small and seemingly harmless step down a very slippery slope. Do you know what's at the bottom of that slippery slope? Why, a world where other people might say or do things that someone else doesn't like. Do you understand now the danger that we are in?
If it were about trying to help parents, there'd be a category for adults. Then the parent can choose age-appropriate titles and adults can still get the apps they want. There isn't a category for adults. That's why this is not about trying to help parents. This is about censoring adults in the name of helping parents. If you think helping parents is a good thing then this is a mockery of it, a smack in the face.
No real libertarian would support censoring adults. Especially not when having an adult category does not negate the usefulness of all the other categories. Adding an adult category would be cost-free in the sense that it wouldn't hinder any of the stated goals of this proposal. The omission of it is either institutionalized stupidity or a deliberate attempt to censor. Both can be called evil.
I am quite familiar with the topic. I simply attribute such things to market forces while you are attributing them to a social agenda. Different motivation, same net result.
I don't see those as mutually exclusive. What may have begun as a market force has been in high gear for about three generations now. It was not questioned and therefore accepted as normal by most. Now it's become a sort of orthodoxy and only its "faithful" seem to get promoted to prominent positions in mainstream media. That makes it equivalent to a social agenda.
I see no contradiction because social agenda is the "what" and perhaps market forces are the "why" or the "how". I question that last part, though, because a few things weaken it.
There is not a lot of diversity of content among the mainstream television news networks. There is very little diversity of ownership of them. The content and coverage are amazingly uniform. Where they compete it's in the form of who can hire the hottest women to be the news anchors.
Other forms of media that also compete for "hard news" consumers like talk radio and Web sites have a much wider range of viewpoints and decisions about what gets covered. So if you want something that qualitatively competes with the mainstream television news offerings, you have to go to another type of media entirely.
I don't see the vigorous competition for viewers that would make market forces the dominant influence, though I don't discount them entirely. Because of that and because of other things I see that are difficult to substantiate, it's clear to me that there is a better explanation.
I would less call it 'censored' and more selectively reported in order to appeal to viewers, since viewers are what drive advertising revenue. People generally do not want to hear bad things about their country unless it is bad things they can attribute to people they already do not like.. and when they do, they vote with their dollars and view elsewhere. No conspiracy or control needed.. just simple economics and self interest on the part of the networks.
EIther way the media controls public opinion and the media is driven by an agenda. In some ways a conspiracy would be "better" since it would likely make mistakes at some point. No, this is worse. This is the work of "true believers". A conspirator in the usual sense knows he is lying, knows he is up to no good, has to keep his story straight. None of that applies to a true believer who can see it no other way.
If you want a fascinating look at the way our media is, just do some research on how they report anything remotely gun-control related. A person legally carrying a firearm stops a crime? The news media says "the attacker was subdued until police arrived". A criminal illegally uses a gun to commit a crime? You get the detailed, moment-by-moment account of the struggle, because guns are bad and independent action even worse, mmkay? There is a definite agenda. It carries a definitely discernable message. One or two stories here and there are one thing but this pattern is amazingly consistent. So are many others. Really, look up this topic and see for yourself how egregious it really is. I am not remotely beginning to describe the depth of it.
Well, people lie. People representing companies lie even more.
On the other hand, most folks lie all the time, don't they. They caught a fish THIS big, or their penis is SO long. Oh well, there goes the last bit of faith that I had in humanity. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
I'd say the faith belongs in sound principles that humans can acknowledge and appreciate or fail to acknowledge and appreciate. It's a good start, anyway.
None of this is difficult to understand. None! If it seems as though no one understands, it's just because it's accepted as normal.
It's something like apathy. That isn't a problem you can solve by throwing more IQ points at it.
It wouldn't be news, it would be a rerun. They should have shortened the title to "ISPs Lie", which directly relates to "Companies Lie".
... which directly relates to "people lie".
Is it about understanding Open Source? Or giving credit where credit is due?
I think a central part of the Open Source philosophy is that giving credit where it's due is secondary to the goal of developing better tools for users. This is why OSS licenses allow forks to be developed without the authorization of the person to whom credit is due.
The author's choice to use the GPL is their authorization. If they consider it critical to prevent this, there are a multitude of other licenses that could be used. The credit given is that this is done openly; there is no mystery about who originally started a project that was later forked.
"No credit given" would be more like taking a major OSS project, forking it and making minor changes, and then claiming to be the author of the entire new project. That's not part of the GPL. It'd also be highly unethical.
I'm not sure if I would say that credit is secondary. I'd say that the concern about it is addressed in a healthy way. Renown and respect for one's skills has to be at least a partial motivator for at least some OSS developers along with the more altruistic motivations.
It's okay. drinkypoo is a known troll. He sometimes posts a good argument and then starts replying contradicting arguments and spews flamebait to try to get more responses under his thread. Once his thread has been replied to frequently, he is modded up as the parent/originator. Nice, cheap way to get a karma boost. Check his post frequency. You would think that he doesn't have anything else to do but troll Slashdot.
If we're going to have trolls they may as well be good at it. Beats the hell out of GNAA crapflooding.
>"Loose lips sink ships" was a common saying during World War II
And today we know *way* too much, in way too much detail, about the location and movement of troops, their morale, reports of their actions, etc.
Much of which could be disinformation and/or propaganda. Much of which could be too general or too outdated to be of tactical or strategic value. War is about a great deal more than bullets and bombs. I think it's a safe wager that the truly important stuff is classified and the info carried by mainstream news networks is thoroughly intended for public consumption.
So I don't think this is something to worry about. Governments may be incompetent and slow to deal with many things, but if there's anything they are particularly good at and downright trigger-happy about, it's anything related to national security.
The common (or if you like, baser) term for this is "stupidity".
I wouldn't call that "paranoid". I'd call it "responsible".
I consider privacy to be a type of freedom. I mean privacy in a very broad sense, including things like not being hit by an identity thief. Freedom has always required vigilance because the mechanisms used to compromise it seem innocuous until they are well-established. The nature of that struggle is just progressing from muskets to information, that's all. Otherwise there have always been cutpurses and common thugs, organized criminals, corrupt governments, and other parasites.
Your passwords have very nit-picky rules for passwords? That's cosmic. Is that a Zen thing, like maybe a koan?
"But Master, how can a password create its own rules if it does not yet exist?"
"When you can tell me the sound of one hand clapping, then you will understand."
I don't really view that as an either-or scenario. As a user of a great deal of Open Source software, I'd file "understanding Open Source" under the general heading of "giving credit where it is due".
Anyone who would deny the tremendous influence Debian has had on the Open Source community is simply ignorant of the facts and, therefore, wrong. It'd be easy enough to correct them. I don't see that as some kind of threat to any notion of what they do or don't deserve, perhaps because I have none. I just appreciate it as it is, confident that ignorance won't survive even a cursory effort to find fact. I suppose I'd make a terrible fanboy.
Note, I don't even use Debian today, though I did use it sometime around 1998-1999.
They're not, though. The car didn't BSOD, and TFA makes no mention of them running any Microsoft software. They did, however, mention Linux.
Your ability to detect humor is the stuff of legends.
you say that government wants to expand, but really it's an unholy alliance of government and private industry. The corruption of government by industry has made it less responsive to the needs of the government.
A government responsive to the citizens wouldn't be able to grow, or engage in such oppressive behavior without the backing of industry. Or don't you remember the military being brought out to try and crush unions ?
I would say it's a matter of whom the government represents. A good government represents its people and treats them all relatively equally. A corrupt government fails to represent its people because more wealth and power can be had by (as you put it) unholy alliances with unscrupulous people in industry.
Either way, you aren't going to get the military to do much of anything without government's blessing.
If you look at it another way, they learned quite a bit. They learned that there are few better justifications for the expansion of police power, a campaign issue that can be used whenever needed, the creation of new bureaucracies, etc. They later figured out that the sheer number of prosecutions resulting from various forms of prohibition were great for the private prison industry.
I am reminded of that quote about having abundant solar energy as soon as the utility companies solve one technical problem: how to run a sunbeam through a meter. I don't know how feasible abundant solar energy actually is, but this is a great caricacture of a mentality that needs to be understood. You're dealing with something just like it when you get down to the root of prohibition.
The government that wants to expand is only too happy to be asked to solve such "problems" but this goes unnoticed because too many people have their own reasons for supporting it. Your solution is reasonable and easily the best way to handle the whole affair. It doesn't deny the painfully obvious, which is that the way we have been approaching the issue doesn't work. You just have to solve one technical problem: how to address the visceral satisfaction some obtain from the suffering of anyone who offends their Puritannical views.
Another Mexican living in Mexico
Man, if you hadn't said that, I would've thought you were talking about the USA.
He did say "every" news source. That sounds to me like it'd include the USA's.
You're using logic. That is why you aren't screaming for more gun control and getting very upset that anyone out there might disagree with this. It's probably also why you aren't pretending that there are two equally viable viewpoints on this issue when in fact it's very simple: one is realistic and based on logic while the other is like a fairy tale and based on emotion and whim.
I hope the "second ammendment remedies" crowd is proud.
Where do you think the guns that fuel this bloodbath are coming from??
The guns that fuel Mexico's bloody drug war come from the United States of America, where we are apparently just a little too dumb for sensible gun control. I guess you never know when you will need an M-16 with a large clip to take down your own country's elected government. Nevermined the consequences or the fact that you would be dead before you even reloaded your weapon.
The drugs are completely illegal in both Mexico and the USA. How's that been working out when it comes to eliminating them? What makes you believe that making guns completely illegal in both countries is going to work out better? When we finally figure out a way to keep drugs out of highly controlled environments like prisons, maybe then we can worry about the US-Mexico border.
I'll never understand why anyone even humors positions like prohibition and gun control. We've tried both for a long time now, more than long enough to iron out any implementation errors. They simply don't work. Acknowledge that and maybe we can come up with something that might work.
Oh, and apparently tyrants everywhere do fear armed civilians. That's why Hitler and every other "successful" dictator made it a top priority to first disarm the citizens. There can be no more honest explanation of this than a hard look at what the tyrants themselves considered a threat to their rule.
You have the right to due process before the state takes away your life, liberty or property. You do not have the right to due process before the community can ridicule you. See, there's this thing called the 1st amendment. It means I can tell you and others what I think about you.
I have the right to say "fuck you, you're a god damned idiot". That doesn't make this a good, worthy, or noble thing to do. Now, that's a hypothetical. I'm not actually trying to insult you or call you an idiot but I wanted to make a point. If I used my free speech in that manner, it would say little or nothing about you while revealing quite a bit about me.
Sure, you can insult people with no fear that the law will stop you because of the 1st Amendment. But tell me, do you really need to have the 1st Amendment repealed and laws of censorship enacted before you would think twice about insulting someone who is presumed innocent until convicted? And if so, is that because you really see something wrong with that practice and found self-restraint? But in that case why did it take a censorship law to change your behavior? That's why you can use the 1st Amendment to cover up any non-existant legal challenges to this behavior, but that will never escape the objections to it that don't involve using the government to censor you.
If you believe in due process at all then you honor the principles behind it even if there is no law compelling you to do so. I mean fuck, if you won't believe or honor anything except under the threat of the force of law, your beliefs and your honor are quite worthless.
If I want the state to honor due process because due process is a sound principle, why would I suddenly consider it unsound when faced with a choice of whether I will personally honor due process? You see, that makes no sense. If I take a "do as I say, not as I do" attitude towards the state, then I'm a garden-variety hypocrite. I'd be a hypocrite because I would want it to represent principles that I myself refuse to even try to embody.
That kind of hypocrisy is the position of immature and self-serving people. Very simply, they want to be protected from a capricious state that can harm anyone it wants on a whim, because such a protection benefits them. They also want to be able to look down their nose at someone and judge that person as beneath them, because this (in one form or another) is extremely important to empty, hollow people who have no principles or nobility. For them there is only gratification and when they don't achieve it by making themselves higher, they do it by making someone else lower. So that also benefits them. By "benefit" I mean it feeds their childish mentality and makes sure they are never made to feel uncomfortable for having it. Thus, they give lip service to ideas like due process but routinely contradict it anytime they are not forced to honor it.
That's why this is about publically posting mugshots for arrests and not for convictions despite the fact that both approaches are equally practical. This and the whole "eighth-grade emotional level our nation is at" (to paraphrase Bill Hicks) is what you are defending.
No, he doesn't. Not if he doesn't want to. This is why so few debates actually remain civil or convince anyone of anything no matter how many facts are presented, no matter how sound the reasoning used.