How can a private group raise the money for a mission like this? I would think the cost would easily be in the hundreds of millions of dollars range, maybe the billion dollar range. What will they get back, what return? I am thinking government has to back them somehow for this to really happen.
The problem is that these men who represent our presidential canidates, are the best that the parties could come up with. Out of everyone in the whole country. These four pricks. Thats insane. If this is the best that the dems and republicans can come up with then we need some different parties invovled in politics.
LOL, Out of everyone "these four pricks"? I don't think it is the party that picked them. It is special interest and money that picked them. The candidates that can be purchased get picked. Look at Cheney and Haliburton. Look at Edwards and the Trial Lawyers. It does not matter what party gets in the white house, they are pretty much the same. What we need is campaign finance reform.
Re:low unemployment compared to europe
on
The Jobs Crunch
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· Score: 1
Grandparent: First of all I am pretty sure that a person without a job in Europe is much better off then a person without a job in the US.
Parent: So to clarify: You're reasonably sure your better off unemployed in europe than the US but you dont know how?
I know how. They have a ton of social programs that people in the USA don't have. They have health care which people in the USA don't have.
The technology uses a highly sophisticated camera that captures three images simultaneously through a single lens. Images thus resolved from between the particles making up fog, smoke, and dust storms are formed into a single picture of the hidden target.
It won't work but I bet it will cost a ton of money. LOL. I bet some CIA analyst will use it from a spy satelite to look in on a nudist beach.
All kidding aside, this is kinda sad. This kind of research could be much more useful for space exploration than for finding ways to kill more people. This professor seems bright, why not find something new instead of working for the military??
So we could very soon see 2.2 inch Mobile phones with VGA resolution. See the photo where a full Windows browser is shown on 2.2 inch.
While this is nice, what I really want is a better battery, better camera (can we get 2mp on a cell phone?), and more storage memory (how about a card slot?). I doubt anyone will run windows or play doom on their cell phone. But people might want to play mp3's, take pictures, or browse the web and check email.
what does porn have to do with taking a mac apart? maybe i have been spending to much time at goatsex.de, who knows. did i read the headline wrong? or did someone hack slashdot?
I don't think you understand my argument. I'm not saying that the guy who gets killed because his Windows-based radiotherapy machine overdosed him is at fault, but rather the engineer who used Windows in a life or death machine. If an engineer willingly builds something he KNOWS has serious concerns with people's well-being, then he is guilty for any deaths or injuries that occur.
At the very least, the Engineer must recognize the limitations of technology, and give proper instruction and warning devices to alert the user to the machine's operating tolerances.
Basically, if someone dies from a windows virus because an engineer/company was trying to cut a few corners, then I want their heads on pikes.
I disagree. For example, say I am building a house. I want to save a few dollars, so I buy the worst lock, most flimsy lock. It does not even lock half the time. At best, it keeps the door shut, but anyone who jiggles the door handle can open the door. The lock is only there for apperance. Does that somehow make it less wrong if someone breaks in my house? What if I used no lock at all? I think it boils down to values. If someone believes it is okay to steal, or to break into other peoples things, then that person has low values, and once they act on their impulses, they are a criminal and should be treated no different.
A little extreme on the allegories, aren't we? Virus writing is not exactly like taking out a knife and killing someone. (Although it may result in the shutdown of systems that support people's lives. I'd tend to blame this on the idiots who use Windows for those systems, though.)
Do you really want to blame the victim, because of what OS they used? Think through your argument. If you got mugged, should someone be able to tell the cops "well, look at him, not too strong... it's his fault for being such an easy target".
As for hiring him, I think my answer would be "maybe". I certainly wouldn't hire him because of his transgressions, but rather despite them. Basically, everyone should be entitled to a second chance.
People stay the same, do the same things. Very few people change who they are. They might change jobs, hairstyles; but they don't change their value system. If you hired this person, and six months later were held hostage because he wrote some backdoor, then that would be a problem for you. Now if you hired him to work where people used credit cards or data, you could be liable for hiring someone like that. It is like hiring a convicted pedophile to watch a second grade class.
It is not about skill or knowledge, it is about "Can I trust this person?". If someone can write a virus, that might demonstrate good knowledge. Releasing the virus shows the person either did not think about the damage they would make, or worse, they did not care. I would not want someone like that in my company or organization. I happen to think those kinds of people belong in jail, because sooner or later they will do something as stupid as the common thug.
How many do we need? Two. Personally, I'd pick C++ and assembly, though I know quite a few people who'd pick Java and assembly. (And assembly's only so we can make OSes.)
This is exactly what I thought, except I never knew anyone who works doing assembly. It might be nice for some theory, but in practice it is never applied. I would think someone who is expert in assembly has a small niche market for themseleves and they probably make good money. My thinking is either C or C++ is a must (or maybe Java, it seems many schools are teaching it instead of C).
How many do we want? More.
LOL!!! You must search for jobs at monster too. What is it with a company "Looking for a webmaster.... We seek someone who can program in HTML, JavaScrip, VB, Java, Cobol, Fortran, lisp....". It seems like the HR people, who don't know any better are listing every language.
I consider myself an expert in precisely one language - C++. I can get by in Java, Python, SQL, C#, and PHP. I suck at shellscript and Perl. All of these languages have their uses, and I use them all when it's appropriate. (Well, except Perl, which I pretty much avoid.)
This sounds like a good programmer to have. You know one thing expert, better than 99% of other people. You can do other things to get by, but you allocate your time to keep current with your one best skill. I wonder if most companies look for someone like you, or the jack of all trades?
On the other hand - learning new languages isn't hard. I can look at just about any sane language (no Brainfuck comments, please) and tell what it does quickly. I say "I can get by in Python" because I realized I needed to write some Python code, and learned enough Python in a day to do it. I'm told that people who learn human languages can do something similar.
It can take time. I remember I had a project where someone on the buisness side was convinced we needed one project coded in VB. Most of the tech people complained, some kissed butt. Suprisingly, I never had a class in VB, so it was time for Borders bookstore. While VB is an easy language, I did spend a fair amount of time learning it, time I could have used doing something else.
Before discussing the book in more detail, I will try to give a basic overview of Sh, since most readers will not be familiar with it.
lol, how many languages do we need? back in the day, knowing 2 or 3 languages very well (like c and some db language) would have been enough to land a job. add to that knowing another 2 or 3 languages well enough to feel comfortable doing small coding, and you have an excellent programmer. now it seems like there are so many languages, from python to cobol to fortran. there must easily be over 50. it is like if i wanted to work at the united nations and said i knew english and spanish and german, and they asked "well what about sanskrit and tagalog". how much is enough?
No, that's what says. As much as you might hate it and not wish to believe it, it's true. Copyright does exist, and just saying "well it's only for a few friends" does not excuse you from complying with it. You have NO LEGAL RIGHT to copy those copyrighted CD's unless they say you can.
There are limited exceptions for educational fair use, but those don't exactly apply here.
I have every legal right to do anything I want with what I own. If I buy a CD, I can copy it as many times as I want, give out those copies to anyone. It is no different than when people used to make copies of tapes back in the 80's and early 90's. Explain to me how it was different back then from today? Not only would people copy tapes for friends, but they would copy music off the radio. I knew of stations in the 80's that played music without a DJ talking during the start of the song so people could make copies. And you are going to tell me that today I can't copy what I OWN???
Or how is this different than a decade ago when people made copies with their VHS tape? And then they shared it. Heck, I knew people who taped movies off HBO or Cinemax and then saved it.
The RIAA is messing with your mind. I don't care what the RIAA says, or how much they intimidate people, it is a fundamental right that you can copy what you own, share it with friends, use it in the car, whatever you want. What do you think is comming next? A EULA for music that says you can only play it on one music device, and if you want to play that song on a different music device you have to buy an additional license? The music companies will try and squeeze every last nickle out of you if you let them. I for one will never pay twice for something.
they will probably leverage all the people who have yahoo accounts. people trust yahoo, and use it everyday for email, fantasy sports, movie info, etc. the amount of free advertising they would get would be huge. unlike if i started getmusicfromme.com, nobody would know about it and nobody would think it would be a universal format. i bet yahoo is banking on people using them because they are so well known.
Seems like only yesterday that Yahoo bought Broadcast.com for $5.4 billion
I wonder what broadcast.com is worth today. But I am happy that Mark Cuban got the money to but the Dallas Mav's, he is probably the most entertaining owner in the NBA.
We all knew Yahoo was going to kill off the conventional media companies like ABC, NBC, and CBS - just a matter of time.
Just like MSN was going to kill CNN and Fox News.
I sure wouldn't want to be in Steve Jobs' shoes knowing that the same minds behind the Yahoo/Broadcast.com integration are now coming after my customers.
I bet if Mark Cuban was still involved, they would have the best service on the web. That is because the #1 thing that guides Cuban's buisness decisions is he wants the customer to be happy. Everything he touches turns to gold. He should be a case study in buisness schools. Amazing how some people can bring wild sucess and others can't do anything better than sue (SCO) or intimidate (RIAA).
Yahoo plans to beef up its IM service with more-interactive music features that enable people to listen to one another's playlists, according to sources familiar with the initiative.
So how is this different than if I share my songs?
The Musicmatch acquisition brought Yahoo the third-largest audience for online music, according to Internet research firm ComScore Media Metrix. As of August, Yahoo's Launch ranked top with 14 million unique users, followed by AOL Music at 13 million and Musicmatch at 5.8 million. MSN Music came in fourth with 4.3 million, Napster owner Roxio had 2.1 million unique users, and RealNetworks' Listen accounted for 1.8 million.
I don't own any drm music. If I want mp3's, I rip them from my own CD's and trade with friends (since we paid for the CD, we can make copies and give them out for free to anyone we want, regardless of what the RIAA says). Those pay services all have their own DRM (I am guessing from what I have been reading), so it is like owning a cripled peice of software. I don't get why people buy something that will only work on X's player.
Why is the US the last place that gets many of these technological advances in networking and wireless data access? When I was over in NZ a couple of weeks ago, there were little tiny cell phones from Japan that were unbelievable in their capabilities. Stuff that typically takes years to show up here in the States are being used by Japanese school kids as a matter of everyday life.
The USA needs more time to add DRM. Seriously. No, just kidding. Maybe.:P
I think it has more to do with how many different systems there are in the USA. What is there? CDMA? GSM? There must be 4 or 5. Plus, if you have ever used a service from a bad provier (Sprint comes to mind), they keep signing people up even though they don't have the capacity for everyone to use the network, so many people get dropped calls even when they are near a tower. What would happen to the network if people decided to download porn on the train ride home?
grandparent:When we're testing the systems in new installations we're ordered to cut back on the gamma and hike up the contrast for the cameras that focus on the defendant.
The reason? To make the defendant more menacing.
parent:Is it any worse than having the defendant show up with freshly cut hair, a clean shaved face, and in a suit?
Should it matter how the defendant looks? If we have a system where looks matter, then we need a new system. If someone is white and in a nice suit, should that excuse the person, where the judge thinks "oh, he made a bad mistake, i feel sorry for him", but if it is a poor black teen the judge thinks "miserable evil uneducated basturd, you deserve to suffer for being so dark".
It is like there are two legal systems, one for the rich and one for the poor. One who can afford their own private lawyer, and one who gets a public defender. Let me guess, these monitors will mostly be used with poorer people who can't afford their own attorney to assert their rights.
one of the most basic rights americans have is the right to face the accuser. the monitor, or any technology like that is one more obstical between the witness and the accused takes away that right. the accused has a right to be in the courthouse with the witness, to watch them, to see how they respond, to ask questions. there is a human element that defense lawyers have, they are expert at understanding body language. having monitors instead of people in the same room would make it easier to lie.
In some ways, the studio's are just as unethical as a pirate. They will re-release a movie over and over again. First comes the vanilla version, with maybe a trailer and nothing else. Then comes the Collectors Edition, with a commentary track and production notes. Then comes the Directors Cut with added footage, remastered nontheless. Why can't they release the best version first? Instead, if you want the movie and the extra's, you have to buy it twice. BTW, this all comes after the $10 movie ticket price where popcorn is $5 and a coke is $5 and you have to sit through half an hour of commercials if you want a good seat. Now tell me again, how are the pirates unethical? What money are they taking away from the studios? Clearly piracy ain't cutting in on the movie ticket sales, or any of the special edition sets.
This is not to say that piracy is good, but considering how the movie studios treat the customers, I don't feel bad for them one but. Maybe if the movie studio's treated me better I would have more sympathy for them (for example, quit with the half hour advertising before a movie). Oh, and my biggest DVD gripe, STOP WITH THE ADVERTISING THAT CAN'T BE SKIPPED.
BTW, in unreleated news, I was reading that movie studios will now accept advertising in movies. Like in "I, Robot" the studio recieved money for a shoe commercial (converse shoes, I think). What is next? I can just see some of the classic movies, improved with product placement. I can just imagine Citizen Cane where everyone where's nike shoes and drinks Pepsi.
You're wrong. Libertarians acknowledge that power exists, and seek to set power against power. The reason that libertarians favor market competition is because it sets the powerful against each other.
I can't see your example in the market. You are assuming, for example that the powerful are pretty much equally powerful. Even then, they might deside to form unethical groups, and that is why we have anti-trust laws. You seem to be saying, for example, it is healthy to have 10 stores all selling electronics. But what I see in the marketplace is one huge superstore moving in town and all the other smaller mom and pop stores closing. How does the libertarian party protect the people against one mega-store, or against the mega rich? I don't think it would be good if the mom & pop stores were shut down, and only 1 mega store was left.
My understanding of the libertarian party is they want no laws. They want people to be 100% free to do whatever they want. If I want to open a store and purposefully sell products at a price lower than wholesale, for no other reason than to shut down another store, that libertarians would alow that. Am I correct?
Today, the Libertarian Party -- and other third parties, of course -- have to fight to get on the ballot. In some states, we have to gather enormous numbers of signatures. In others, we have to drag the state to court.
It has been this way forever. We have two parties, and they don't want any competition. My feeling is anyone who can get X signatures on a petition should be put on a ballot. In some ways, getting on a ballot should be just as important a right as the right to vote, otherwise we are like China when they have free elections, but only one candidate.
Having said that, I would never vote for a libertarian. They fail to see one aspect of humanity. Power corrupts. There is greed. If left unchecked, the powerful will enslave the rest of us. It is human nature. For example, around the time of the revolution 1% of the USA population owned 10% of all wealth, today that 1% owns over 40% of all wealth. There is something wrong when wealth can be concentrated into so few people, that the rest of the USA is left with less. Someone mentioned earlier that the previous generation could survive with one income. Today many families need two incomes to make ends meet.
I doubt many people would want to live in 800 square foot houses if given a choice. Most people who make money like to build big gigantic houses. Some even like to go into well established neighborhoods, buy an older smaller house, tear it down, and build their McMansion.
I think the real problem humanity will face is over population. The world is staying the same size, but there are more people. How much longer can people keep cutting down trees, without replacing them, until the price of lumber gets so high that only a small amount of people will be able to afford it. I remember when I was in highschool, the population of the USA was 250 million, and in the papers a few weeks ago it referenced the population at 300 million. If that is correct, we grew by 50 million people in the past 15 years. What will happen in the next 50 years? Is it possible we will pass the half a billion mark? Will we become the next India?
What people should think about is economics. The world is becomming a divided place. Even in the USA. I remember reading an article in school which showed that the top 1% of people in the USA owned 10% of the wealth around the time of the revolution. Today 1% of the USA owns more than 40% of all the wealth. The papers also had an article that Bush wants to eliminate overtime pay. That means buisness will be able to force people to work more hours, without the detterant of paying time_and_a_half. Does that mean we will see 50 hour work weeks and less to show for it? But before anyone decides to jump on the democratic bandwagon, they are not that much better. Both the republican and democratic party are subject to the same rules of the game, the same need to raise moeny and bow to the lobbists. We need a new breed of politicians, but to get them, we need to pay attention and not vote the way we pick what fast food resturan to eat lunch at.
While solar panels might sound cool, it is like a band-aid on a wound to the neck. I don't know what the anwser is. We can't stop people from having kids. We can try and conserve natural resources, but eventually the number of people will be more than the planet can support.
What scares me is the fear that 90% of the population will be pushed into slave like conditions, while the richest 10% live relativly well, even in the worst of conditions. They will hire some of the poor, train them as police or military, and protect the "public peace". Think of India, where even with the poverty, a small percentage of the people live luxeriously, and the rest are controlled by a somewhat corrupt police force and politicians. The rest live on the streat and the have's walk past them, sometimes looking at the have-nots as human garbage, but most of the time trying not to make eye contact.
Slashdot Mirror
How can a private group raise the money for a mission like this? I would think the cost would easily be in the hundreds of millions of dollars range, maybe the billion dollar range. What will they get back, what return? I am thinking government has to back them somehow for this to really happen.
LOL, Out of everyone "these four pricks"? I don't think it is the party that picked them. It is special interest and money that picked them. The candidates that can be purchased get picked. Look at Cheney and Haliburton. Look at Edwards and the Trial Lawyers. It does not matter what party gets in the white house, they are pretty much the same. What we need is campaign finance reform.
Parent: So to clarify: You're reasonably sure your better off unemployed in europe than the US but you dont know how?
I know how. They have a ton of social programs that people in the USA don't have. They have health care which people in the USA don't have.
A recession is when someone you know is out of work.
A depression is when you are out of work.
Then we are in a MAJOR depression.
It won't work but I bet it will cost a ton of money. LOL. I bet some CIA analyst will use it from a spy satelite to look in on a nudist beach.
All kidding aside, this is kinda sad. This kind of research could be much more useful for space exploration than for finding ways to kill more people. This professor seems bright, why not find something new instead of working for the military??
but can it see through shirts?
While this is nice, what I really want is a better battery, better camera (can we get 2mp on a cell phone?), and more storage memory (how about a card slot?). I doubt anyone will run windows or play doom on their cell phone. But people might want to play mp3's, take pictures, or browse the web and check email.
what does porn have to do with taking a mac apart? maybe i have been spending to much time at goatsex.de, who knows. did i read the headline wrong? or did someone hack slashdot?
I disagree. For example, say I am building a house. I want to save a few dollars, so I buy the worst lock, most flimsy lock. It does not even lock half the time. At best, it keeps the door shut, but anyone who jiggles the door handle can open the door. The lock is only there for apperance. Does that somehow make it less wrong if someone breaks in my house? What if I used no lock at all? I think it boils down to values. If someone believes it is okay to steal, or to break into other peoples things, then that person has low values, and once they act on their impulses, they are a criminal and should be treated no different.
Do you really want to blame the victim, because of what OS they used? Think through your argument. If you got mugged, should someone be able to tell the cops "well, look at him, not too strong... it's his fault for being such an easy target".
As for hiring him, I think my answer would be "maybe". I certainly wouldn't hire him because of his transgressions, but rather despite them. Basically, everyone should be entitled to a second chance.
People stay the same, do the same things. Very few people change who they are. They might change jobs, hairstyles; but they don't change their value system. If you hired this person, and six months later were held hostage because he wrote some backdoor, then that would be a problem for you. Now if you hired him to work where people used credit cards or data, you could be liable for hiring someone like that. It is like hiring a convicted pedophile to watch a second grade class.
It is not about skill or knowledge, it is about "Can I trust this person?". If someone can write a virus, that might demonstrate good knowledge. Releasing the virus shows the person either did not think about the damage they would make, or worse, they did not care. I would not want someone like that in my company or organization. I happen to think those kinds of people belong in jail, because sooner or later they will do something as stupid as the common thug.
This is exactly what I thought, except I never knew anyone who works doing assembly. It might be nice for some theory, but in practice it is never applied. I would think someone who is expert in assembly has a small niche market for themseleves and they probably make good money. My thinking is either C or C++ is a must (or maybe Java, it seems many schools are teaching it instead of C).
How many do we want? More.
LOL!!! You must search for jobs at monster too. What is it with a company "Looking for a webmaster.... We seek someone who can program in HTML, JavaScrip, VB, Java, Cobol, Fortran, lisp....". It seems like the HR people, who don't know any better are listing every language.
I consider myself an expert in precisely one language - C++. I can get by in Java, Python, SQL, C#, and PHP. I suck at shellscript and Perl. All of these languages have their uses, and I use them all when it's appropriate. (Well, except Perl, which I pretty much avoid.)
This sounds like a good programmer to have. You know one thing expert, better than 99% of other people. You can do other things to get by, but you allocate your time to keep current with your one best skill. I wonder if most companies look for someone like you, or the jack of all trades?
On the other hand - learning new languages isn't hard. I can look at just about any sane language (no Brainfuck comments, please) and tell what it does quickly. I say "I can get by in Python" because I realized I needed to write some Python code, and learned enough Python in a day to do it. I'm told that people who learn human languages can do something similar.
It can take time. I remember I had a project where someone on the buisness side was convinced we needed one project coded in VB. Most of the tech people complained, some kissed butt. Suprisingly, I never had a class in VB, so it was time for Borders bookstore. While VB is an easy language, I did spend a fair amount of time learning it, time I could have used doing something else.
lol, how many languages do we need? back in the day, knowing 2 or 3 languages very well (like c and some db language) would have been enough to land a job. add to that knowing another 2 or 3 languages well enough to feel comfortable doing small coding, and you have an excellent programmer. now it seems like there are so many languages, from python to cobol to fortran. there must easily be over 50. it is like if i wanted to work at the united nations and said i knew english and spanish and german, and they asked "well what about sanskrit and tagalog". how much is enough?
I have every legal right to do anything I want with what I own. If I buy a CD, I can copy it as many times as I want, give out those copies to anyone. It is no different than when people used to make copies of tapes back in the 80's and early 90's. Explain to me how it was different back then from today? Not only would people copy tapes for friends, but they would copy music off the radio. I knew of stations in the 80's that played music without a DJ talking during the start of the song so people could make copies. And you are going to tell me that today I can't copy what I OWN???
Or how is this different than a decade ago when people made copies with their VHS tape? And then they shared it. Heck, I knew people who taped movies off HBO or Cinemax and then saved it.
The RIAA is messing with your mind. I don't care what the RIAA says, or how much they intimidate people, it is a fundamental right that you can copy what you own, share it with friends, use it in the car, whatever you want. What do you think is comming next? A EULA for music that says you can only play it on one music device, and if you want to play that song on a different music device you have to buy an additional license? The music companies will try and squeeze every last nickle out of you if you let them. I for one will never pay twice for something.
they will probably leverage all the people who have yahoo accounts. people trust yahoo, and use it everyday for email, fantasy sports, movie info, etc. the amount of free advertising they would get would be huge. unlike if i started getmusicfromme.com, nobody would know about it and nobody would think it would be a universal format. i bet yahoo is banking on people using them because they are so well known.
hope it works, looks like there is good stuff there!
I wonder what broadcast.com is worth today. But I am happy that Mark Cuban got the money to but the Dallas Mav's, he is probably the most entertaining owner in the NBA.
We all knew Yahoo was going to kill off the conventional media companies like ABC, NBC, and CBS - just a matter of time.
Just like MSN was going to kill CNN and Fox News.
I sure wouldn't want to be in Steve Jobs' shoes knowing that the same minds behind the Yahoo/Broadcast.com integration are now coming after my customers.
I bet if Mark Cuban was still involved, they would have the best service on the web. That is because the #1 thing that guides Cuban's buisness decisions is he wants the customer to be happy. Everything he touches turns to gold. He should be a case study in buisness schools. Amazing how some people can bring wild sucess and others can't do anything better than sue (SCO) or intimidate (RIAA).
So how is this different than if I share my songs?
The Musicmatch acquisition brought Yahoo the third-largest audience for online music, according to Internet research firm ComScore Media Metrix. As of August, Yahoo's Launch ranked top with 14 million unique users, followed by AOL Music at 13 million and Musicmatch at 5.8 million. MSN Music came in fourth with 4.3 million, Napster owner Roxio had 2.1 million unique users, and RealNetworks' Listen accounted for 1.8 million.
I don't own any drm music. If I want mp3's, I rip them from my own CD's and trade with friends (since we paid for the CD, we can make copies and give them out for free to anyone we want, regardless of what the RIAA says). Those pay services all have their own DRM (I am guessing from what I have been reading), so it is like owning a cripled peice of software. I don't get why people buy something that will only work on X's player.
The USA needs more time to add DRM. Seriously. No, just kidding. Maybe. :P
I think it has more to do with how many different systems there are in the USA. What is there? CDMA? GSM? There must be 4 or 5. Plus, if you have ever used a service from a bad provier (Sprint comes to mind), they keep signing people up even though they don't have the capacity for everyone to use the network, so many people get dropped calls even when they are near a tower. What would happen to the network if people decided to download porn on the train ride home?
parent: Is it any worse than having the defendant show up with freshly cut hair, a clean shaved face, and in a suit?
Should it matter how the defendant looks? If we have a system where looks matter, then we need a new system. If someone is white and in a nice suit, should that excuse the person, where the judge thinks "oh, he made a bad mistake, i feel sorry for him", but if it is a poor black teen the judge thinks "miserable evil uneducated basturd, you deserve to suffer for being so dark".
It is like there are two legal systems, one for the rich and one for the poor. One who can afford their own private lawyer, and one who gets a public defender. Let me guess, these monitors will mostly be used with poorer people who can't afford their own attorney to assert their rights.
one of the most basic rights americans have is the right to face the accuser. the monitor, or any technology like that is one more obstical between the witness and the accused takes away that right. the accused has a right to be in the courthouse with the witness, to watch them, to see how they respond, to ask questions. there is a human element that defense lawyers have, they are expert at understanding body language. having monitors instead of people in the same room would make it easier to lie.
This is not to say that piracy is good, but considering how the movie studios treat the customers, I don't feel bad for them one but. Maybe if the movie studio's treated me better I would have more sympathy for them (for example, quit with the half hour advertising before a movie). Oh, and my biggest DVD gripe, STOP WITH THE ADVERTISING THAT CAN'T BE SKIPPED.
BTW, in unreleated news, I was reading that movie studios will now accept advertising in movies. Like in "I, Robot" the studio recieved money for a shoe commercial (converse shoes, I think). What is next? I can just see some of the classic movies, improved with product placement. I can just imagine Citizen Cane where everyone where's nike shoes and drinks Pepsi.
I can't see your example in the market. You are assuming, for example that the powerful are pretty much equally powerful. Even then, they might deside to form unethical groups, and that is why we have anti-trust laws. You seem to be saying, for example, it is healthy to have 10 stores all selling electronics. But what I see in the marketplace is one huge superstore moving in town and all the other smaller mom and pop stores closing. How does the libertarian party protect the people against one mega-store, or against the mega rich? I don't think it would be good if the mom & pop stores were shut down, and only 1 mega store was left.
My understanding of the libertarian party is they want no laws. They want people to be 100% free to do whatever they want. If I want to open a store and purposefully sell products at a price lower than wholesale, for no other reason than to shut down another store, that libertarians would alow that. Am I correct?
It has been this way forever. We have two parties, and they don't want any competition. My feeling is anyone who can get X signatures on a petition should be put on a ballot. In some ways, getting on a ballot should be just as important a right as the right to vote, otherwise we are like China when they have free elections, but only one candidate.
Having said that, I would never vote for a libertarian. They fail to see one aspect of humanity. Power corrupts. There is greed. If left unchecked, the powerful will enslave the rest of us. It is human nature. For example, around the time of the revolution 1% of the USA population owned 10% of all wealth, today that 1% owns over 40% of all wealth. There is something wrong when wealth can be concentrated into so few people, that the rest of the USA is left with less. Someone mentioned earlier that the previous generation could survive with one income. Today many families need two incomes to make ends meet.
I think the real problem humanity will face is over population. The world is staying the same size, but there are more people. How much longer can people keep cutting down trees, without replacing them, until the price of lumber gets so high that only a small amount of people will be able to afford it. I remember when I was in highschool, the population of the USA was 250 million, and in the papers a few weeks ago it referenced the population at 300 million. If that is correct, we grew by 50 million people in the past 15 years. What will happen in the next 50 years? Is it possible we will pass the half a billion mark? Will we become the next India?
What people should think about is economics. The world is becomming a divided place. Even in the USA. I remember reading an article in school which showed that the top 1% of people in the USA owned 10% of the wealth around the time of the revolution. Today 1% of the USA owns more than 40% of all the wealth. The papers also had an article that Bush wants to eliminate overtime pay. That means buisness will be able to force people to work more hours, without the detterant of paying time_and_a_half. Does that mean we will see 50 hour work weeks and less to show for it? But before anyone decides to jump on the democratic bandwagon, they are not that much better. Both the republican and democratic party are subject to the same rules of the game, the same need to raise moeny and bow to the lobbists. We need a new breed of politicians, but to get them, we need to pay attention and not vote the way we pick what fast food resturan to eat lunch at.
While solar panels might sound cool, it is like a band-aid on a wound to the neck. I don't know what the anwser is. We can't stop people from having kids. We can try and conserve natural resources, but eventually the number of people will be more than the planet can support.
What scares me is the fear that 90% of the population will be pushed into slave like conditions, while the richest 10% live relativly well, even in the worst of conditions. They will hire some of the poor, train them as police or military, and protect the "public peace". Think of India, where even with the poverty, a small percentage of the people live luxeriously, and the rest are controlled by a somewhat corrupt police force and politicians. The rest live on the streat and the have's walk past them, sometimes looking at the have-nots as human garbage, but most of the time trying not to make eye contact.