The first paragraph of the charter of rights says we only have any of the listed rights long as the government thinks they're reasonable. All they have to say is that they don't think it's reasonable that we have them on the internet.
Actually, from requests I've had (I work from a small ISP), they already have something on the books for this and it doesn't require a warrant. The RCMP officer refered to section 7(3)(c.1)(ii) of the "Pursuant to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Document Act" (PIPEDA). Apparently it requires no warrant in cases where disclosure is required to enforce a law... That leaves an aftertaste of gigantic loophole in my mouth but I'm no lawyer.
In its defence... The US government is flat broke and has been running on borrowed money for a great many years now. Even the so-called drastic cuts they were arguing about a while ago were cuts on planned increases (2 trillion cuts on planned 9 trillion budget increases).
Diversification as you've mentioned seems like the viable option in your specific case. But I think everyone in the US should put quite a bit of thought on what they feel they're entitled to as far as government hand-outs are. Debt costs a lot more (interests) than a balanced budget. A 1% cut across the board (*everything*) for six years followed by a freeze (no cut, no increase) would balance the budget in about 8 years without shutting down any program. If on top of that you get rid of monsters like DHS and end the senseless wars, you can do it in a lot less time.
If they sell it to you for 20,000$, you can bet your bottom dollar that it cost them 15,000$ to produce. Even if there's a 50,000$ model with all the stuff enabled.
There's nothing wrong with putting a 50,000$ price tag on a 15,000$ car assuming people are willing to pay that kind of premium but the only reason why anyone would get away with that is price-fixing and collusion. Else there would be a company just way too happy to sell you an equivalent of the 50,000$ model for 25,000$ and seize the entire market.
I personally blame patents and industry-driven lets-make-sure-nobody-can-enter-the-market regulations for this kind of crap.
Arguably, in the x86 world, that's not free market pricing, that's duopoly pricing... And the other guy also engages in the same scam, because they don't have any competitor who won't.
For those who didn't catch the sarcasm of parent... Water vapor is much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2. And I salute a fellow heretic of the new religion.
Good point, but Thorium works quite well in breeder reactors which admittedly can't fit in a car but were considered viable to power a big plane once. Added bonus, many can be designed to consume nuclear waste as part of their cycle and they're not a very big risk in terms of being used to make nuclear weapons. I'm sure they have drawbacks but I'd be surprised if we didn't already have all the know-how to make it work properly.
Don't breeder reactors typically run on thorium? If I recall correctly, they were compact enough to be used to power a (big) plane. Not sure about their method of harnessing the energy but I think a switch to thorium and breeders might work quite well if we iron out a few kinks. Added bonus, breeders aren't suitable to make bomb material and they can 'eat' existing nuclear waste as part of their process.
It's fuel(food) is grown...it's exhaust is mostly harmless, if a bit smelly...
Put enough horses as you need to perform the same job as cars/trucks/buses in any major city and let me know how well that goes.
As I argued earlier, you only do the kind of deep science required for true alternative energy when your economy is doing well enough that you don't have to focus all your resources on survival and keeping the system running.
In 100 years, we can do a crapload of science though... It's putting very little faith in our scientific progress to think that in 100 years we wouldn't have yet a better alternative. Cold fusion might still be just ten years away then but we're doing pretty good progress in other areas, be it solar, bio-fuels and other renewable sources. Stopping economic (and consequently scientific) progress when there are no real alternatives is a sure way to make sure we never get out of this mess.
We didn't move to oil because we ran out of coal, you know. It just turns out that the industrialization and the scientific progress that was made possible by the former led to the development of the later. In the age of coal, solar or nuclear was a pipe dream. In the age of oil, it's a reality. When we're in the next age, our time's pipe dreams might well be commonplace.
Maybe they just respect their neighbours and do not want to bother them? This thing goes both ways, you know.
If I could afford the kind of property where I do not really have to hear or see my neighbour unless I feel like it, I'd think it's the best deal. In fact, it helps relations with them quite a bit when compared to being forced to deal with them because of confinement to narrow spaces.
Given the current trend, be glad it hasn't reached the whole *height* of the app too. UI designers of today seem to think their UI is so damn grandiose that it has to take all the screen space away from apps/documents/useful work.
And now the trend is to have every app maximized to make up for it...
Ten years down the line, however, this argument won't hold.
I think the US is already ten years down the line... Proof, Duke Nukem Forever is out. Okay, that last bit is a joke but economically, it's not if we keep this up, we'll fall off a cliff for the US. The cliff is there.
My poorly educated guess is that it's only a short term gain if they're spending borrowed money to create jobs. If they're spending taxed money to create jobs, they're not adding to the net economic output of the country because every dollar they spend is taken out of someone's pocket. If it's borrowed money, it's going to create a short boom until they hit the sort of wall they're hitting in the US now and debt becomes more of a burden than the jobs it created. That's just about when it becomes forced to shed a lot more jobs than it created by borrowing in the first place.
If you're in the EU, you might get an idea of what excessive reliance on government jobs might look like if you go spend some time in Greece. Government is broke and lots and lots of angry people not getting the government handouts (or salaries) they had become accustomed to.
Like it or not, the state is a business with a monopoly over its market and the only one in town allowed to force you to pay for its services. It does not have any short or mid term incentive to be efficient or in any way careful with its debt or investments... Until it hits the inevitable brick wall.
My guess is that the government doesn't have a hand in those yet and as such don't need to publish studies to justify spending/wasting your tax dollars about those.
with a UI designed for a big, desktop monitor (not a netbook or a tablet)
The trend of wasting as many pixels as possible on UI elements has just got to stop. I don't need a 40pixel wide window border with round corners, huge shiny idiot-proof buttons, toolbars made way too thick and wide by such buttons and the like.
I buy a 'big, desktop monitor' so I can see and work with as much information as possible. If I wanted an UI designed so bad that windows need to be maximized to be useful, I'd be buying an ipad.
To me, this is equivalent to saying: Well, people all have large desks now, let's drop the 8.5"x11" format and switch all documents to 24"x48" sheets of cardboard with 48pt fonts.
What bothers me most is that if I want to raise my kid like that and let them have a real childhood with all the bumps and bruises and scares it entails, I'll be the evil parent and CPS will come take him/her away.
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The irony I see here is that the only way they could afford that is by borrowing from China ;)
I'm mostly kidding here of course, but there's enough truth in there to lead to some reflection.
I say 80% of evil on earth is ignorance-driven.
The first paragraph of the charter of rights says we only have any of the listed rights long as the government thinks they're reasonable. All they have to say is that they don't think it's reasonable that we have them on the internet.
Actually, from requests I've had (I work from a small ISP), they already have something on the books for this and it doesn't require a warrant. The RCMP officer refered to section 7(3)(c.1)(ii) of the "Pursuant to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Document Act" (PIPEDA). Apparently it requires no warrant in cases where disclosure is required to enforce a law... That leaves an aftertaste of gigantic loophole in my mouth but I'm no lawyer.
Somehow, that statement made me think of Nathan Explosion going something along the lines of: "The blackest black..."
In its defence... The US government is flat broke and has been running on borrowed money for a great many years now. Even the so-called drastic cuts they were arguing about a while ago were cuts on planned increases (2 trillion cuts on planned 9 trillion budget increases).
Diversification as you've mentioned seems like the viable option in your specific case. But I think everyone in the US should put quite a bit of thought on what they feel they're entitled to as far as government hand-outs are. Debt costs a lot more (interests) than a balanced budget. A 1% cut across the board (*everything*) for six years followed by a freeze (no cut, no increase) would balance the budget in about 8 years without shutting down any program. If on top of that you get rid of monsters like DHS and end the senseless wars, you can do it in a lot less time.
If they sell it to you for 20,000$, you can bet your bottom dollar that it cost them 15,000$ to produce. Even if there's a 50,000$ model with all the stuff enabled.
There's nothing wrong with putting a 50,000$ price tag on a 15,000$ car assuming people are willing to pay that kind of premium but the only reason why anyone would get away with that is price-fixing and collusion. Else there would be a company just way too happy to sell you an equivalent of the 50,000$ model for 25,000$ and seize the entire market.
I personally blame patents and industry-driven lets-make-sure-nobody-can-enter-the-market regulations for this kind of crap.
Arguably, in the x86 world, that's not free market pricing, that's duopoly pricing... And the other guy also engages in the same scam, because they don't have any competitor who won't.
For those who didn't catch the sarcasm of parent... Water vapor is much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2. And I salute a fellow heretic of the new religion.
Good point, but Thorium works quite well in breeder reactors which admittedly can't fit in a car but were considered viable to power a big plane once. Added bonus, many can be designed to consume nuclear waste as part of their cycle and they're not a very big risk in terms of being used to make nuclear weapons. I'm sure they have drawbacks but I'd be surprised if we didn't already have all the know-how to make it work properly.
Don't breeder reactors typically run on thorium? If I recall correctly, they were compact enough to be used to power a (big) plane. Not sure about their method of harnessing the energy but I think a switch to thorium and breeders might work quite well if we iron out a few kinks. Added bonus, breeders aren't suitable to make bomb material and they can 'eat' existing nuclear waste as part of their process.
It's fuel(food) is grown...it's exhaust is mostly harmless, if a bit smelly...
Put enough horses as you need to perform the same job as cars/trucks/buses in any major city and let me know how well that goes.
As I argued earlier, you only do the kind of deep science required for true alternative energy when your economy is doing well enough that you don't have to focus all your resources on survival and keeping the system running.
In 100 years, we can do a crapload of science though... It's putting very little faith in our scientific progress to think that in 100 years we wouldn't have yet a better alternative. Cold fusion might still be just ten years away then but we're doing pretty good progress in other areas, be it solar, bio-fuels and other renewable sources. Stopping economic (and consequently scientific) progress when there are no real alternatives is a sure way to make sure we never get out of this mess.
We didn't move to oil because we ran out of coal, you know. It just turns out that the industrialization and the scientific progress that was made possible by the former led to the development of the later. In the age of coal, solar or nuclear was a pipe dream. In the age of oil, it's a reality. When we're in the next age, our time's pipe dreams might well be commonplace.
Maybe they just respect their neighbours and do not want to bother them? This thing goes both ways, you know.
If I could afford the kind of property where I do not really have to hear or see my neighbour unless I feel like it, I'd think it's the best deal. In fact, it helps relations with them quite a bit when compared to being forced to deal with them because of confinement to narrow spaces.
I've been reading rational and articulated posts defending people's big lawns for about 10 minutes now... Then I come across this.
You sir summed it up better than everyone else and make me wish I had mod points.
Given the current trend, be glad it hasn't reached the whole *height* of the app too. UI designers of today seem to think their UI is so damn grandiose that it has to take all the screen space away from apps/documents/useful work.
And now the trend is to have every app maximized to make up for it...
Ten years down the line, however, this argument won't hold.
I think the US is already ten years down the line... Proof, Duke Nukem Forever is out. Okay, that last bit is a joke but economically, it's not if we keep this up, we'll fall off a cliff for the US. The cliff is there.
My poorly educated guess is that it's only a short term gain if they're spending borrowed money to create jobs. If they're spending taxed money to create jobs, they're not adding to the net economic output of the country because every dollar they spend is taken out of someone's pocket. If it's borrowed money, it's going to create a short boom until they hit the sort of wall they're hitting in the US now and debt becomes more of a burden than the jobs it created. That's just about when it becomes forced to shed a lot more jobs than it created by borrowing in the first place.
If you're in the EU, you might get an idea of what excessive reliance on government jobs might look like if you go spend some time in Greece. Government is broke and lots and lots of angry people not getting the government handouts (or salaries) they had become accustomed to.
Like it or not, the state is a business with a monopoly over its market and the only one in town allowed to force you to pay for its services. It does not have any short or mid term incentive to be efficient or in any way careful with its debt or investments... Until it hits the inevitable brick wall.
My guess is that the government doesn't have a hand in those yet and as such don't need to publish studies to justify spending/wasting your tax dollars about those.
I mostly agree with you except for this bit:
with a UI designed for a big, desktop monitor (not a netbook or a tablet)
The trend of wasting as many pixels as possible on UI elements has just got to stop. I don't need a 40pixel wide window border with round corners, huge shiny idiot-proof buttons, toolbars made way too thick and wide by such buttons and the like.
I buy a 'big, desktop monitor' so I can see and work with as much information as possible. If I wanted an UI designed so bad that windows need to be maximized to be useful, I'd be buying an ipad.
To me, this is equivalent to saying: Well, people all have large desks now, let's drop the 8.5"x11" format and switch all documents to 24"x48" sheets of cardboard with 48pt fonts.
Sounds like the plot for Fast&Furious movies.
What bothers me most is that if I want to raise my kid like that and let them have a real childhood with all the bumps and bruises and scares it entails, I'll be the evil parent and CPS will come take him/her away.
The problem seem to be that you are under the impression that Mythbusters is something other than an entertainment TV show.
Apparently that's enough credentials for the US military... And I'm not trying to prove you wrong here. I'm baffled by it.
A slap on the wrist and a few weeks jail time can mean you don't get a lot of jobs.
In the current US economy, I think this is becoming increasingly moot. You don't get a lot of jobs regardless.
Yeah... I guess licenses like the GPL, Apache and what not are the 'constitution' in this analogy.