How about the ability for the average person to hook it up to a plasma, buy shows (movies) from the itunes store and stream them to the mini over wireless? with minimal setup?
You're kidding right? First you pay $2 per show to watch TV, which is more than buying the DVD and certainly more than renting. Second, you get a 320x200 VCR-resolution video, but only after downloading for quite a while to watch on your 27-42" screen? You may as well ask a friend to tape the show for you on an old VCR in SLP mode for extra fuzziness and give him the $2.
Well, for a long time, tv-out simply didn't exist for PCs, whereas it always existed for consoles and set-top boxes, but usually it was either a TV or a computer monitor, not both. DVRs are essentially set-top boxes themselves.
The content industry is so money hungry that I simply opted out of cable, but I am close enough to a big city to get all the OTA content out there (23 channels), and a lot in HD. I can't imagine paying more than $40/mo for content whether it be internet a DVR or cable. I didn't know about the FCC rule. My DVR doesn't have an HD archival output of any kind, just SD. The one problem is since my DVR doesn't have a DVD burner (I have yet to purchase one), if I record something, I can't bring it over to a friend's place to see it with them. And if I want to watch it on their HDTV? There really isn't an option besides taking the whole DVR over.
Once large 1080p HDTV screens catch on, then people won't want to start converting their DVD collections to the next format, they will want their current DVDs to look amazing. So the conversion to HD-DVD or BD-DVD now isn't for people who already have HDTV's, but to make sure there is the momentum by the time HDTV is common.
Imagine a scenario where someone secretly switches all the DVDs in the store with hybrid HD-DVDs that play just fine in current DVD players, but also have extra crisp content on a HD layer for next-generation players. Now imagine that for several years a family has been purchasing DVDs that were really hybrid discs. Wouldn't it be easier to sell the family a new player/HDTV so that they can enjoy the content they already own in a better way?
Naturally, hybrid discs would probably be phased in over a period of time, but it probably wouldn't be long until they were the only format available. Whoever wins the format war is not for today, but for the future, so that when players are $25 at Wal*Mart, consumers can just expect to have their movie collections look better.
Whoever wants to have a true media center HD computer has to be able to handle all inputs including component, overscan, and picture balance right from the remote. It took computer makers 15 years with regular television sets, and I'm beginning to think it will take another 15 years for HD (if ever).
Actually I'm beginning to think that the current round of HD is going to be junked entirely before we have wide adoption of HDTV in the US. It's either going to be SED or OLED displays with 4 HDMI inputs and built in cablecard3/ATSC tuners, and cheap enough to think that everyone has one. The content industry is trying to kill off component and DVI entirely, and I'm beginning to think they will succeed.
It seems pretty much like component is dead in HD-land now. HDCP garbage made things much harder for the consumer and is slowing HD adoption in general. All the stuff I see only supports component for upconversion of EDTV-level video max. Which comes two mistakes for the media industry. First, many of the early adopters they depend on to fund R&D have only component HD in on their sets, that now no-one supports. Second, most HD sets have only one HDMI or DVI input. So you can hook up either your HD-DVD/Blu-ray player, or your HD cable box, or your game system, or your computer. To further exacerbate the problem, the new sets are mostly HD-"ready" with no ATSC/cablecard tuner so not only do you have external devices taking up ports, but something that used to be internal is now another external device. The alternative is to get a $300 switch box to switch between every input with a second clunky remote control.
My television is a 34" widescreen HD-ready box with 1 HDMI input, 2 component inputs and for some strange reason 4 SDTV inputs as well as NTSC antenna in. Connecting a computer through HDMI is not easy and requires unusual display modes that most cards have issues with. Since I got a DVR to free up space in my entertainment center, it is now taking up the HDMI. Unless HDMI splitter boxes come down drastically in price and have some better integration than a second remote control, I'm going to pass on anything I can't connect to component-in.
This product obviously isn't for you though, so why not use any other SFF PC and run MythTV on it if you want to?
Form-factor and noise level. I'm holding off until I can get a system that's as small as a slim DVD player, have DVR functionality (2 ATSC/cablecard capable tuners), will play almost any video format in HD of media and over 802.11g, burn DVD's with both native HD and DVD spec video, have updated news/weather/traffic from over the internet, will play minor games (it doesn't need to be an XBox, but a few simple games would be nice, and most of all have a pleasant, integrated experience.
I think that even if Apple didn't want to develop those things into FrontRow, they could at least provide the means for other developers to create their own FrontRow applets that would provide the necessary functionality.
While the original mac mini was a good idea, the new intel versions raise the price, abandoning the $500 price point. Also while they have FrontRow, there is still no tuner, no DVR software to support a tuner in FrontRow, and no component HDTV out. Showing a slideshow on a regular television could have been done by expanding their airport extreme base, and most DVD players can do slideshows already, some straight from a camera's memory card. And who wants to have their TV on to listen to music?
To really make the thing a media center, you need things like games, multiple tuners, integrated internet apps to get updates on weather, traffic, news, etc. Pretty much everything that's in MythTV. Apple has dvd playing that can be done with a $30 DVD player, music, and slideshows. Any other apps need more than a television so you can read the text in the OS anyway.
Sorry, but that's slashdot article of faith number 16, behind "Microsoft is Evil" (falling behind the RIAA and MPAA), "Religion is stupid/evil", and "George Lucas couldn't write good dialog if his life depended on it."
Creation scientists do not deny evolution exists. They simply call it "microevolution" and claim that there are boundaries that cannot be crossed between different "kinds" of creature populations. You can show a creature evolving like fruitflies and bacteria and they say it remains within the same "kind", and that there is no common ancestry outside a creature's "kind" (other than God zapping it to life). That is where the debate lies.
Here is some numerical evidence the media is slanted against the U.S. in the Iraq war
from: here
Friday, 21 January [2005] (Australian time) is an average day as far as Iraq is concerned. Google news indexes the following negative stories concerning Iraq:
2,642 stories about Condi Rice's confirmation hearings, in the context of grilling she has received over the Administration's Iraq policy
1,992 stories about suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks
887 stories about prisoner abuse by British soldiers
2,345 stories about President Bush's inauguration, in the context of the President failing to mention the word "Iraq" in his speech, or indeed discuss the war
216 stories about hostages currently being held in Iraq
761 stories reporting on activities and public statements of insurgents
357 stories about the anti-war movement and the dropping public support for involvement in Iraq
182 stories about American servicemen killed and wounded in operations
217 stories about concerns for fairness and validity of Iraqi election (low security, low turnout, etc.)
107 stories about civilian deaths in Iraq
123 stories noting Vice President Cheney's admission that he had underestimated the task of reconstruction
219 stories about possible military action against Iran
24 stories about tense relations with Syria
118 stories about complicated and strained relations between the US and Europe
121 stories discussing the possibility of American pullout
27 stories about sabotage of Iraqi oil infrastructure
660 stories about prosecutions in the Oil for Food scandal
Then we have 123 stories - ostensibly neutral - about details of current troop deployments and movements. I write "ostensibly" because among that number there are numerous stories about deserters or soldiers refusing orders.
Finally we come to positive news:
311 stories about voter registration for Iraqis overseas. Even here we have to be cautious as significant number of these stories comment on "disappointingly" low numbers registering.
16 stories about security successes in the fight against insurgents
7 stories about positive developments relating to elections
73 stories about the return to Iraq of stolen antiques.
If the media coverage was war, the good guys would be getting slaughtered.
Finally someone who gets it without a bunch of paraniod conspiracy theories. People here seem to think that they can call people outside of the U.S. and expect the conversation to be private. Are you kidding me? Do you people think the other country has qualms about spying on your phone calls? Do you think the NSA isn't monitoring any signal that leaves U.S. borders? This is insane.
Also there are so many conspiracies that sound like some here need to be put on anti-psychotics. They assume that the President is monitoring every little internal phone call, and just waiting to lock them up under a trumped up charge for the rest of their lives, but at the same time call the president every name in the book and scream for his impeachment. It sounds mentally unbalanced to put it mildly. No one here seems to care about any sort of precedent, any sort of reality check, or any sort of factual data outside of a leak from an unidentified NSA (ex?) employee and the conjecture of the NY Times. There is no evidence of this being widespread, unprecedented, or even domestic. Yet some here are thinking that the President is just short of having a coup and taking the reigns as dictator of the U.S. complete with show trials, and mass executions of everyone who ever spoke up against him.
The more sane motivation is that the people on here calling for the impeachment of Bush simply don't like his politics and would prefer a democrat in the whitehouse and nothing else matters. It doesn't matter if the democrat does exactly what Bush did or worse, because he has a (D) in front of his name. If it's something else, then some serious psychological/psychiatric treatment is necessary.
Re:Why not add a "material harmful for minors"?
on
Games Are Porn in Utah
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· Score: 4, Funny
There should be some kind of way of corralling the "think of the children" laws. Maybe it could just be a list of contraband that forces the seller to check with the parent of someone below the age of X. Of course, it could be a long list. Everything from soft drinks to hard liquor could make the list in some areas.
The final crazy form of the law would be individual lists per kid of every family, where parents would tag their kids with some kind of embedded RFID that contains a list of everything their parents don't want them exposed to. Don't have the tag? You can only get water and whole wheat organic crackers.
It's kind of funny, I wonder if libertarians would even support an elastic clause. Probably not in its current form in the constitution. Most people have no idea how limiting of the government the constitution is supposed to be. When studying it, its hard to reconcile the federal government we have today with what is written in the constitution. I would also argue that the Federal Reserve needs to be in the constitution, as well as the FDA, EPA, FAA, and CDC. I think the real problem is the elastic clause, which should have had some upper limit on what congress regulates. The founders knew that whatever leeway was given to congress would be taken, but they hoped for the checks and balances to work. Unfortunately checks and balances only work when one branch is trying to get more power. When the whole of the federal government is growing, checks and balances do nothing. I am personally in favor of an anti-legislature that would only have the power to remove law that was over a certain age. I think it would allow for a certain release valve to the current state of laws.
to point out the irony that those who wrap themselves in the flag and set themselves upon the Bible as a pedestal are acting as the Pharisees and Sadducees did. This is IMHO a clearly inconsistent position.
It's important to remember that the Pharisees were not just mild moralists we see today, but extremely legalistic to the point that a modern American would consider a kook. Their domain was religion, not the state, but they used this position to enrich themselves and guilt people into giving them more power (Matt. 23). They even had their own currency to influence this, with money changing booths which Jesus objected to the point of throwing them out of the temple (Matt. 21:12). The point is that they cared more about their own hegemony at this point than of any authority of God. They had power over people when they could make them obey stricter laws, and their religion was Macheivellian to the point that they would pray loudly in the streets to show how spiritual they were (Matt. 6:5).
Remember that Jesus' teachings were about redemption, not morality. After teaching about moral issues, He said, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matt. 5:48) An impossibility in itself which is why the crucifixion was needed.
It's also important to remember that the form of government was very different at this time, and the kinds of teachings you give to a citizenry under an emperor would be very different than to the citizens of a democracy. Mostly what Jesus taught was to lie low as far as the state was concerned. This is probably good in a country where you could be killed for saying something bad about the leader.
For this case yes, but it will be an interesting day in court when a defendants lawyer brings this up when the MPAA sues someone else for copyright infringement.
The problem with wealth restricting measures, is that they usually don't apply to the politicians themselves. So instead of a 10:1, you get a 100000000:10:1 where politicians become the first billion to 1.
Having wealth spread around more does have advantages though, and some things help, like having a moderate rate of inflation to make sure the wealthy invest their money in other companies rather than hoarding their money. One way to decrease the concentration of wealth is to get rid of or simply reduce the legal regulations that limit competition. Things like cable and utility monopolies, expensive FCC licenses, 100-year copyrights, and ridiculous patents. There are probably thousands more laws that keep competition low.
Also eventually the cost to manufacture goods overseas in developing countries has to be met with some sort of tariff so that more research in mechanized manufacturing can take place in the U.S.. Upper management can't simply push all manufacturing overseas and bring in the money for themselves. The DoD has to realize that losing the ability to produce goods is harmful for national defense.
This would cover the two reasons why CEOs make so much more than their employees. Lack of competition brings in the money, and overseas manufacturing makes sure that employee wages don't need to be that high. It will only happen after an economic disaster though. We'll see what happens when the U.S. housing bubble pops.
Well, then the media fell for the Republican spin, took their eye off the watchdog purpose, and let partisan bickering become the (boring) story. It's almost impossible to find out exactly what Abramoff did, or what the consequences are to him and the congressmen accepting money from him. Also, before reporting accusations, maybe the press could get off their butts and research to see if the accusations hold any water. It's as true now as with the Bush TANG letters. In fact, I think the press shouldn't report any accusation period. All that said, it's tempting to let the Republicans go on with their accusations, especially if accepting the money is enough of a reason to get kicked out of office, because then each party would be watching the other like hawks and we could benefit from a slightly more scrupulous congress.
I'm wondering what the consequences are if the rules are broken. From what I remember, the limits are $1000 per individual per year ($2000 per corporation). But the congressmen need so much money to run their elections, plus there is so much pressure to buy their favor from people/corporations with lots of money, that if there is any way to get around the rules, it will happen (Like the semi-legal 571's that popped up last election).
It would be much better to be able to channel the money for political purposes instead of damming it up. Maybe if the corporation was forced to donate the money to a third party to do a study on whatever they are interested in would help. That way, the third party would be able to conduct the study unaware of where the money came from and submit it back to Congress with the remaining money that was unused (forcing the corporation to overgive so that there would be money left over). If it was found that the group doing the study was aware of who funded them, or if they had ties to the original donor, then the study and the money would not be delivered. The corporation's lobbyist would then do whatever was necessary to spin the results to their favor (while noting to the Congressman where the money came from). Okay, this wouldn't work to much on the corruption end, but it would make sure a lot of money went to the sciences.
Although I am happy that they shined the light on this, it seems the story is no longer about the Abramoff bribes, but about if Republicans or Democrats took more. The press, IMHO has shown that it has abandoned its watchdog duties since before the Rather scandal. The best thing to do would be to push for some kind of either reform (which won't work because there's too much benefit to the ones making the reform) or some kind of independent prosecutor to take a look at where money is coming from.
It would help if the legislature was split differently. The Senate was originally supposed to represent the states, and be appointed by the governor of each state, but now it's not much different than the House. Maybe the senate could be turned into a kind of anti-legislature whose only ability is to remove law from the books that are more than a decade old. This way, the Presidential veto keeps its power, law becomes less complex, and there is a real difference between the two legislating bodies. Because their duties are completely opposed to each other, one could be a watchdog to the other. This won't stop cross legislature deals, but it would make things more tricky.
Oh, that and a line-item veto amendment to eliminate ridiculous riders and we would be all set.
Re:No conspiracy to see here [OT?]
on
The Patent Epidemic
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· Score: 3, Insightful
The problem with the current patent system is that it was made with the idea that the economy would be a craft/agrarian economy forever (when the patent system was invented so that craft makers could protect their inventions). In our main economy, the world has moved from agrarian, to a craft economy, to an industrial economy, to the modern design economy.
At each stage the lower stages become streamlined and mechanized so that few people are needed at the lower levels. An agrarian economy falls to mechanized farming, a craft economy falls to the assembly line, and an industrial economy falls to robotic manufacture, or a highly mechanized assembly line. In essence, the western world is in a design economy, but mechanized fabrication is not well utilized thanks to extremely cheap foreign labor. At any rate, even without foreign labor, robotic manufacturing would have pushed us to a design economy by now, but now since ever larger teams of highly trained people are designing each new product to be manufactured, the patent system has now become an impediment to the moving forward of the new design economy.
The main goal behind economic laws are to make sure that proper protections are given to people who contribute to the economy so more people contribute. A proper reform would be to do away with the patent system, and slightly expand the copywright system to make sure that designs can be copywrighted in their totality, but not tiny, minor, broad mechanisms.
Intellisense helps when you are writing the code, but I don't want to have to click on every single obcure API call when reading code afterwards. It also helps when you print out a function for later reference.
Well, in the world of VisualStudio where you can type:
color = NSColor...
And you get a popup saying NSColor(int red, int green, int blue, int alpha);
It may not be necessary, but when reading the code later on, or in a different application, it's good to have the cues outside of the application when it is originally written. When writing for a huge API, it is necessary to have more cues than a mysterious list of parameters.
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How about the ability for the average person to hook it up to a plasma, buy shows (movies) from the itunes store and stream them to the mini over wireless? with minimal setup?
You're kidding right? First you pay $2 per show to watch TV, which is more than buying the DVD and certainly more than renting. Second, you get a 320x200 VCR-resolution video, but only after downloading for quite a while to watch on your 27-42" screen? You may as well ask a friend to tape the show for you on an old VCR in SLP mode for extra fuzziness and give him the $2.
Well, for a long time, tv-out simply didn't exist for PCs, whereas it always existed for consoles and set-top boxes, but usually it was either a TV or a computer monitor, not both. DVRs are essentially set-top boxes themselves.
The content industry is so money hungry that I simply opted out of cable, but I am close enough to a big city to get all the OTA content out there (23 channels), and a lot in HD. I can't imagine paying more than $40/mo for content whether it be internet a DVR or cable. I didn't know about the FCC rule. My DVR doesn't have an HD archival output of any kind, just SD. The one problem is since my DVR doesn't have a DVD burner (I have yet to purchase one), if I record something, I can't bring it over to a friend's place to see it with them. And if I want to watch it on their HDTV? There really isn't an option besides taking the whole DVR over.
Once large 1080p HDTV screens catch on, then people won't want to start converting their DVD collections to the next format, they will want their current DVDs to look amazing. So the conversion to HD-DVD or BD-DVD now isn't for people who already have HDTV's, but to make sure there is the momentum by the time HDTV is common.
Imagine a scenario where someone secretly switches all the DVDs in the store with hybrid HD-DVDs that play just fine in current DVD players, but also have extra crisp content on a HD layer for next-generation players. Now imagine that for several years a family has been purchasing DVDs that were really hybrid discs. Wouldn't it be easier to sell the family a new player/HDTV so that they can enjoy the content they already own in a better way?
Naturally, hybrid discs would probably be phased in over a period of time, but it probably wouldn't be long until they were the only format available. Whoever wins the format war is not for today, but for the future, so that when players are $25 at Wal*Mart, consumers can just expect to have their movie collections look better.
Whoever wants to have a true media center HD computer has to be able to handle all inputs including component, overscan, and picture balance right from the remote. It took computer makers 15 years with regular television sets, and I'm beginning to think it will take another 15 years for HD (if ever).
Actually I'm beginning to think that the current round of HD is going to be junked entirely before we have wide adoption of HDTV in the US. It's either going to be SED or OLED displays with 4 HDMI inputs and built in cablecard3/ATSC tuners, and cheap enough to think that everyone has one. The content industry is trying to kill off component and DVI entirely, and I'm beginning to think they will succeed.
It seems pretty much like component is dead in HD-land now. HDCP garbage made things much harder for the consumer and is slowing HD adoption in general. All the stuff I see only supports component for upconversion of EDTV-level video max. Which comes two mistakes for the media industry. First, many of the early adopters they depend on to fund R&D have only component HD in on their sets, that now no-one supports. Second, most HD sets have only one HDMI or DVI input. So you can hook up either your HD-DVD/Blu-ray player, or your HD cable box, or your game system, or your computer. To further exacerbate the problem, the new sets are mostly HD-"ready" with no ATSC/cablecard tuner so not only do you have external devices taking up ports, but something that used to be internal is now another external device. The alternative is to get a $300 switch box to switch between every input with a second clunky remote control.
My television is a 34" widescreen HD-ready box with 1 HDMI input, 2 component inputs and for some strange reason 4 SDTV inputs as well as NTSC antenna in. Connecting a computer through HDMI is not easy and requires unusual display modes that most cards have issues with. Since I got a DVR to free up space in my entertainment center, it is now taking up the HDMI. Unless HDMI splitter boxes come down drastically in price and have some better integration than a second remote control, I'm going to pass on anything I can't connect to component-in.
This product obviously isn't for you though, so why not use any other SFF PC and run MythTV on it if you want to?
Form-factor and noise level. I'm holding off until I can get a system that's as small as a slim DVD player, have DVR functionality (2 ATSC/cablecard capable tuners), will play almost any video format in HD of media and over 802.11g, burn DVD's with both native HD and DVD spec video, have updated news/weather/traffic from over the internet, will play minor games (it doesn't need to be an XBox, but a few simple games would be nice, and most of all have a pleasant, integrated experience.
I think that even if Apple didn't want to develop those things into FrontRow, they could at least provide the means for other developers to create their own FrontRow applets that would provide the necessary functionality.
While the original mac mini was a good idea, the new intel versions raise the price, abandoning the $500 price point. Also while they have FrontRow, there is still no tuner, no DVR software to support a tuner in FrontRow, and no component HDTV out. Showing a slideshow on a regular television could have been done by expanding their airport extreme base, and most DVD players can do slideshows already, some straight from a camera's memory card. And who wants to have their TV on to listen to music?
To really make the thing a media center, you need things like games, multiple tuners, integrated internet apps to get updates on weather, traffic, news, etc. Pretty much everything that's in MythTV. Apple has dvd playing that can be done with a $30 DVD player, music, and slideshows. Any other apps need more than a television so you can read the text in the OS anyway.
Sorry, but that's slashdot article of faith number 16, behind "Microsoft is Evil" (falling behind the RIAA and MPAA), "Religion is stupid/evil", and "George Lucas couldn't write good dialog if his life depended on it."
Creation scientists do not deny evolution exists. They simply call it "microevolution" and claim that there are boundaries that cannot be crossed between different "kinds" of creature populations. You can show a creature evolving like fruitflies and bacteria and they say it remains within the same "kind", and that there is no common ancestry outside a creature's "kind" (other than God zapping it to life). That is where the debate lies.
What anti-American slant?
Here is some numerical evidence the media is slanted against the U.S. in the Iraq war from: here
Friday, 21 January [2005] (Australian time) is an average day as far as Iraq is concerned. Google news indexes the following negative stories concerning Iraq:
2,642 stories about Condi Rice's confirmation hearings, in the context of grilling she has received over the Administration's Iraq policy
1,992 stories about suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks
887 stories about prisoner abuse by British soldiers
2,345 stories about President Bush's inauguration, in the context of the President failing to mention the word "Iraq" in his speech, or indeed discuss the war
216 stories about hostages currently being held in Iraq
761 stories reporting on activities and public statements of insurgents
357 stories about the anti-war movement and the dropping public support for involvement in Iraq
182 stories about American servicemen killed and wounded in operations
217 stories about concerns for fairness and validity of Iraqi election (low security, low turnout, etc.)
107 stories about civilian deaths in Iraq
123 stories noting Vice President Cheney's admission that he had underestimated the task of reconstruction
219 stories about possible military action against Iran
24 stories about tense relations with Syria
118 stories about complicated and strained relations between the US and Europe
121 stories discussing the possibility of American pullout
27 stories about sabotage of Iraqi oil infrastructure
660 stories about prosecutions in the Oil for Food scandal
Then we have 123 stories - ostensibly neutral - about details of current troop deployments and movements. I write "ostensibly" because among that number there are numerous stories about deserters or soldiers refusing orders.
Finally we come to positive news:
311 stories about voter registration for Iraqis overseas. Even here we have to be cautious as significant number of these stories comment on "disappointingly" low numbers registering.
16 stories about security successes in the fight against insurgents
7 stories about positive developments relating to elections
73 stories about the return to Iraq of stolen antiques.
If the media coverage was war, the good guys would be getting slaughtered.
Finally someone who gets it without a bunch of paraniod conspiracy theories. People here seem to think that they can call people outside of the U.S. and expect the conversation to be private. Are you kidding me? Do you people think the other country has qualms about spying on your phone calls? Do you think the NSA isn't monitoring any signal that leaves U.S. borders? This is insane.
Also there are so many conspiracies that sound like some here need to be put on anti-psychotics. They assume that the President is monitoring every little internal phone call, and just waiting to lock them up under a trumped up charge for the rest of their lives, but at the same time call the president every name in the book and scream for his impeachment. It sounds mentally unbalanced to put it mildly. No one here seems to care about any sort of precedent, any sort of reality check, or any sort of factual data outside of a leak from an unidentified NSA (ex?) employee and the conjecture of the NY Times. There is no evidence of this being widespread, unprecedented, or even domestic. Yet some here are thinking that the President is just short of having a coup and taking the reigns as dictator of the U.S. complete with show trials, and mass executions of everyone who ever spoke up against him.
The more sane motivation is that the people on here calling for the impeachment of Bush simply don't like his politics and would prefer a democrat in the whitehouse and nothing else matters. It doesn't matter if the democrat does exactly what Bush did or worse, because he has a (D) in front of his name. If it's something else, then some serious psychological/psychiatric treatment is necessary.
There should be some kind of way of corralling the "think of the children" laws. Maybe it could just be a list of contraband that forces the seller to check with the parent of someone below the age of X. Of course, it could be a long list. Everything from soft drinks to hard liquor could make the list in some areas.
The final crazy form of the law would be individual lists per kid of every family, where parents would tag their kids with some kind of embedded RFID that contains a list of everything their parents don't want them exposed to. Don't have the tag? You can only get water and whole wheat organic crackers.
It's kind of funny, I wonder if libertarians would even support an elastic clause. Probably not in its current form in the constitution. Most people have no idea how limiting of the government the constitution is supposed to be. When studying it, its hard to reconcile the federal government we have today with what is written in the constitution. I would also argue that the Federal Reserve needs to be in the constitution, as well as the FDA, EPA, FAA, and CDC. I think the real problem is the elastic clause, which should have had some upper limit on what congress regulates. The founders knew that whatever leeway was given to congress would be taken, but they hoped for the checks and balances to work. Unfortunately checks and balances only work when one branch is trying to get more power. When the whole of the federal government is growing, checks and balances do nothing. I am personally in favor of an anti-legislature that would only have the power to remove law that was over a certain age. I think it would allow for a certain release valve to the current state of laws.
to point out the irony that those who wrap themselves in the flag and set themselves upon the Bible as a pedestal are acting as the Pharisees and Sadducees did. This is IMHO a clearly inconsistent position.
It's important to remember that the Pharisees were not just mild moralists we see today, but extremely legalistic to the point that a modern American would consider a kook. Their domain was religion, not the state, but they used this position to enrich themselves and guilt people into giving them more power (Matt. 23). They even had their own currency to influence this, with money changing booths which Jesus objected to the point of throwing them out of the temple (Matt. 21:12). The point is that they cared more about their own hegemony at this point than of any authority of God. They had power over people when they could make them obey stricter laws, and their religion was Macheivellian to the point that they would pray loudly in the streets to show how spiritual they were (Matt. 6:5).
Remember that Jesus' teachings were about redemption, not morality. After teaching about moral issues, He said, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matt. 5:48) An impossibility in itself which is why the crucifixion was needed.
It's also important to remember that the form of government was very different at this time, and the kinds of teachings you give to a citizenry under an emperor would be very different than to the citizens of a democracy. Mostly what Jesus taught was to lie low as far as the state was concerned. This is probably good in a country where you could be killed for saying something bad about the leader.
For this case yes, but it will be an interesting day in court when a defendants lawyer brings this up when the MPAA sues someone else for copyright infringement.
The "no profit" loophole was closed by the DMCA. Now the MPAA is fleeing to a locked door. This is going to be fun.
$212 million for dust???
You say that now, just wait until the scientists find something in the dust that proves Intelligent Design. The flamewar would be immense.
The problem with wealth restricting measures, is that they usually don't apply to the politicians themselves. So instead of a 10:1, you get a 100000000:10:1 where politicians become the first billion to 1.
Having wealth spread around more does have advantages though, and some things help, like having a moderate rate of inflation to make sure the wealthy invest their money in other companies rather than hoarding their money. One way to decrease the concentration of wealth is to get rid of or simply reduce the legal regulations that limit competition. Things like cable and utility monopolies, expensive FCC licenses, 100-year copyrights, and ridiculous patents. There are probably thousands more laws that keep competition low.
Also eventually the cost to manufacture goods overseas in developing countries has to be met with some sort of tariff so that more research in mechanized manufacturing can take place in the U.S.. Upper management can't simply push all manufacturing overseas and bring in the money for themselves. The DoD has to realize that losing the ability to produce goods is harmful for national defense.
This would cover the two reasons why CEOs make so much more than their employees. Lack of competition brings in the money, and overseas manufacturing makes sure that employee wages don't need to be that high. It will only happen after an economic disaster though. We'll see what happens when the U.S. housing bubble pops.
Well, then the media fell for the Republican spin, took their eye off the watchdog purpose, and let partisan bickering become the (boring) story. It's almost impossible to find out exactly what Abramoff did, or what the consequences are to him and the congressmen accepting money from him. Also, before reporting accusations, maybe the press could get off their butts and research to see if the accusations hold any water. It's as true now as with the Bush TANG letters. In fact, I think the press shouldn't report any accusation period. All that said, it's tempting to let the Republicans go on with their accusations, especially if accepting the money is enough of a reason to get kicked out of office, because then each party would be watching the other like hawks and we could benefit from a slightly more scrupulous congress.
I'm wondering what the consequences are if the rules are broken. From what I remember, the limits are $1000 per individual per year ($2000 per corporation). But the congressmen need so much money to run their elections, plus there is so much pressure to buy their favor from people/corporations with lots of money, that if there is any way to get around the rules, it will happen (Like the semi-legal 571's that popped up last election).
It would be much better to be able to channel the money for political purposes instead of damming it up. Maybe if the corporation was forced to donate the money to a third party to do a study on whatever they are interested in would help. That way, the third party would be able to conduct the study unaware of where the money came from and submit it back to Congress with the remaining money that was unused (forcing the corporation to overgive so that there would be money left over). If it was found that the group doing the study was aware of who funded them, or if they had ties to the original donor, then the study and the money would not be delivered. The corporation's lobbyist would then do whatever was necessary to spin the results to their favor (while noting to the Congressman where the money came from). Okay, this wouldn't work to much on the corruption end, but it would make sure a lot of money went to the sciences.
Although I am happy that they shined the light on this, it seems the story is no longer about the Abramoff bribes, but about if Republicans or Democrats took more. The press, IMHO has shown that it has abandoned its watchdog duties since before the Rather scandal. The best thing to do would be to push for some kind of either reform (which won't work because there's too much benefit to the ones making the reform) or some kind of independent prosecutor to take a look at where money is coming from.
It would help if the legislature was split differently. The Senate was originally supposed to represent the states, and be appointed by the governor of each state, but now it's not much different than the House. Maybe the senate could be turned into a kind of anti-legislature whose only ability is to remove law from the books that are more than a decade old. This way, the Presidential veto keeps its power, law becomes less complex, and there is a real difference between the two legislating bodies. Because their duties are completely opposed to each other, one could be a watchdog to the other. This won't stop cross legislature deals, but it would make things more tricky.
Oh, that and a line-item veto amendment to eliminate ridiculous riders and we would be all set.
When you can run wine?
The problem with the current patent system is that it was made with the idea that the economy would be a craft/agrarian economy forever (when the patent system was invented so that craft makers could protect their inventions). In our main economy, the world has moved from agrarian, to a craft economy, to an industrial economy, to the modern design economy. At each stage the lower stages become streamlined and mechanized so that few people are needed at the lower levels. An agrarian economy falls to mechanized farming, a craft economy falls to the assembly line, and an industrial economy falls to robotic manufacture, or a highly mechanized assembly line. In essence, the western world is in a design economy, but mechanized fabrication is not well utilized thanks to extremely cheap foreign labor. At any rate, even without foreign labor, robotic manufacturing would have pushed us to a design economy by now, but now since ever larger teams of highly trained people are designing each new product to be manufactured, the patent system has now become an impediment to the moving forward of the new design economy. The main goal behind economic laws are to make sure that proper protections are given to people who contribute to the economy so more people contribute. A proper reform would be to do away with the patent system, and slightly expand the copywright system to make sure that designs can be copywrighted in their totality, but not tiny, minor, broad mechanisms.
Intellisense helps when you are writing the code, but I don't want to have to click on every single obcure API call when reading code afterwards. It also helps when you print out a function for later reference.
Well, in the world of VisualStudio where you can type:
color = NSColor...
And you get a popup saying NSColor(int red, int green, int blue, int alpha);
It may not be necessary, but when reading the code later on, or in a different application, it's good to have the cues outside of the application when it is originally written. When writing for a huge API, it is necessary to have more cues than a mysterious list of parameters.