I think you misunderstood where I was trying to go with my rambling.
I wasn't trying to say that working class people are bereft of morals or less fit to govern. I was speaking directly about the separate issue of bribery and illegal corruption that you spoke about in your last sentence. Basically I skipped a few steps in between and assumed oversight would stay as it is now, allowing lobbyists to work their magic on an equally impressionable but less wealthy group of people.
I'm all about getting rid of the "rich" requirement to be in public office. I'd like to be involved in politics myself, but don't feel I have the time or background to have a chance.
I'd never heard of Demarchy before. Thanks for the lesson.
I can see where a lot of reelection pressure would be removed, but I think it would lead to even worse corruption than we have now, or at least less expensive corruption. A randomly selected segment of the population would be likely to have far less personal wealth than current politicians and thus be easier to influence with current lobbyist practices.
Add to that there would definitely have to be some way of ensuring that the person selected could actually fill the capacity they're supposed to. Perhaps a competency test and the appointee is chosen randomly from that pool.
As much as I hated selling the magazines it was actually a pretty good deal if you bought more than $150 worth of used games a year since it would cover its own cost with the 10% off card.
The real numbers are much closer than 2:40. It's more like 20:40. Games with a trade in value of $2 usually resell for >$15.
If you buy the game new and trade it in the next month you can expect to get about half the cost back. Of course the retailer will only give it a $5 markdown when they put it back on the shelf, but they're in the business for money.
If game developers want people to hold onto their games they should probably be thinking around the area of replay ability.
I worked at an EB Games/Gamestop and I thought that whole $5 mark down thing was pretty dumb too, but if your Gamestop sells people scratched games then they're just being assholes. At our store we would show the customer the quality of the disc before they bought it and made sure they went home with something playable. If a trade in was scratched then it got sent to the company for resurfacing.
The thing that really annoyed me was the pressure to sell their magazine subscriptions and "disc warranties". I quit shortly after they tried to get us to sell mobile phones, Helio Mobile to be precise.
While we're on the subject of outdoor lighting; I switched my hours from 11am-7:30pm to the rather unconventional 2am-10:30am shift recently. Because of this I usually go to bed at about 5pm. I've gotten so used to going to sleep when it's still sunny outside that now I panic when I see that it's dark and think I've stayed up far too late.
I wish I had some "trollishly insightful" mod points to hand out.
Since a lot of our road funds come from the sale of gasoline I wonder how that will affect vehicles capable of running on alternate fuels. As it is right now people with higher efficiency and alternate fuel vehicles are pretty much dodging their share of the "road maintenance" gas taxes.
It is my opinion that if a candidate is on the ballot of enough states to get 270 electoral votes they should participate in the debates. That would go a long way to breaking up the two party lock down we currently suffer from.
When I was a kid in Louisiana i remember seeing mechanical voting machines with a big lever you pulled. What ever happened to those and why isn't that an option anyone is considering?
Oops i forgot about imminent danger pay at the rate of 225 a month if any day of that month is spent in a combat zone. So yes, there is combat pay, and it would be $1812 a month.
$1587 per month. There is no such thing as combat pay, it just becomes tax free. You could argue that the pay is really crappy, but there are tons of benefits that come with it (housing, food, clothing, health care). Also, pay increases if you're married and/or have children. So while it's only $1587 it is mostly disposable income.
I think we're using different definitions of holding back. My definition would be halting their advance or denying them entry into an area, something they certainly aren't doing. I don't know what your definition includes.
The surge didn't fail. Iraq is significantly more peaceful now than before the surge. Opinions are out on the exact cause of the shift, but the surge didn't make things worse than they were before.
Believe me when I say I don't need a lecture on Iraq. I've been there. I was just trying to make sure that anyone who read the post I replied to didn't get the silly impression that Anti-American fighters were somehow holding back the entire military with some rifles. Anonymity is the only thing keeping them alive, not their guns or bombs.
Judging by the +5 insightful he's gotten I don't think it worked.
I understand what you're talking about, and agree that things like that aren't good, but we're not talking about just clicking through an error message or "are you sure" dialog. These people are controlling the border of a country that is paying them to do it properly and accurately. There are a number of ways to test for continued compliance to a standard including random monitoring and even sending people through whose documents don't match to see if they're caught.
The reason the RFID chips are even in the passports is to bring up info that can be compared to the document in hand. You could require the agent to type in the name, scan a barcode or swipe a magstripe to do the same thing, but the bottom line is that the human in the loop has to look at the damn screen and see if it matches. They have to do this reliably hundreds of times a day. This action isn't an interruption of thier task, it is their task. If that isn't enough to keep them on their toes then they need to find a new line of work.
Then that's a flaw of the user, not the system. You could argue that adding a machine to the process would cause people to become complacent, but even the best lock only works if you use it properly.
From the article: "Although the tags don't contain personal information, they could be used to track a person's movements through ongoing surveillance..."
Considering the "passport" is the entire document and the tag itself contains no identifying information they still can't clone your passport at a distance. They could clone the tag inside it, but the process of faking your passport would still involve creating the paper hard copy. I'd say if they still have to do everything they used to and also something new then it's more secure, not less.
Of course the ability to recognize and track a person's movements through the use of RFID is still worrying, but it's no easier to fake a passport than it used to be.
You should read more about the subject if you're going to say wheat wouldn't grow in Afghanistan. Wheat does grow in Afghanistan. Also, most poppy fields are irrigated in some manner. The real reason they don't have a choice is because they either don't own the land they farm on, owe someone too much money to afford the lower profits of wheat, or they don't own enough land to pay for their needs with the lower priced crops.
If you'd really like to know more on the topic you can find a pretty informative paper here.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you misunderstood where I was trying to go with my rambling.
I wasn't trying to say that working class people are bereft of morals or less fit to govern. I was speaking directly about the separate issue of bribery and illegal corruption that you spoke about in your last sentence. Basically I skipped a few steps in between and assumed oversight would stay as it is now, allowing lobbyists to work their magic on an equally impressionable but less wealthy group of people.
I'm all about getting rid of the "rich" requirement to be in public office. I'd like to be involved in politics myself, but don't feel I have the time or background to have a chance.
I'd never heard of Demarchy before. Thanks for the lesson.
I can see where a lot of reelection pressure would be removed, but I think it would lead to even worse corruption than we have now, or at least less expensive corruption.
A randomly selected segment of the population would be likely to have far less personal wealth than current politicians and thus be easier to influence with current lobbyist practices.
Add to that there would definitely have to be some way of ensuring that the person selected could actually fill the capacity they're supposed to. Perhaps a competency test and the appointee is chosen randomly from that pool.
As much as I hated selling the magazines it was actually a pretty good deal if you bought more than $150 worth of used games a year since it would cover its own cost with the 10% off card.
The real numbers are much closer than 2:40. It's more like 20:40. Games with a trade in value of $2 usually resell for >$15.
If you buy the game new and trade it in the next month you can expect to get about half the cost back. Of course the retailer will only give it a $5 markdown when they put it back on the shelf, but they're in the business for money.
If game developers want people to hold onto their games they should probably be thinking around the area of replay ability.
I worked at an EB Games/Gamestop and I thought that whole $5 mark down thing was pretty dumb too, but if your Gamestop sells people scratched games then they're just being assholes. At our store we would show the customer the quality of the disc before they bought it and made sure they went home with something playable. If a trade in was scratched then it got sent to the company for resurfacing.
The thing that really annoyed me was the pressure to sell their magazine subscriptions and "disc warranties". I quit shortly after they tried to get us to sell mobile phones, Helio Mobile to be precise.
I like the way you roll. I just can't decide what I should go to college for.
~ NoisySplatter, rolling with no college degree and an unused GI Bill.
I'm going to have to call woooosh on this one.
While we're on the subject of outdoor lighting; I switched my hours from 11am-7:30pm to the rather unconventional 2am-10:30am shift recently. Because of this I usually go to bed at about 5pm. I've gotten so used to going to sleep when it's still sunny outside that now I panic when I see that it's dark and think I've stayed up far too late.
I wish I had some "trollishly insightful" mod points to hand out.
Since a lot of our road funds come from the sale of gasoline I wonder how that will affect vehicles capable of running on alternate fuels. As it is right now people with higher efficiency and alternate fuel vehicles are pretty much dodging their share of the "road maintenance" gas taxes.
It is my opinion that if a candidate is on the ballot of enough states to get 270 electoral votes they should participate in the debates. That would go a long way to breaking up the two party lock down we currently suffer from.
Green Elf shot the food!
When I was a kid in Louisiana i remember seeing mechanical voting machines with a big lever you pulled. What ever happened to those and why isn't that an option anyone is considering?
Oops i forgot about imminent danger pay at the rate of 225 a month if any day of that month is spent in a combat zone. So yes, there is combat pay, and it would be $1812 a month.
$1587 per month. There is no such thing as combat pay, it just becomes tax free. You could argue that the pay is really crappy, but there are tons of benefits that come with it (housing, food, clothing, health care). Also, pay increases if you're married and/or have children. So while it's only $1587 it is mostly disposable income.
I prefer "Karma-Whore: The Grind to +2"
I think we're using different definitions of holding back. My definition would be halting their advance or denying them entry into an area, something they certainly aren't doing. I don't know what your definition includes.
The surge didn't fail. Iraq is significantly more peaceful now than before the surge. Opinions are out on the exact cause of the shift, but the surge didn't make things worse than they were before.
Believe me when I say I don't need a lecture on Iraq. I've been there. I was just trying to make sure that anyone who read the post I replied to didn't get the silly impression that Anti-American fighters were somehow holding back the entire military with some rifles. Anonymity is the only thing keeping them alive, not their guns or bombs.
Judging by the +5 insightful he's gotten I don't think it worked.
Those few dedicated persons in Iraq are not standing in the way of the US government, nor do they only have small arms.
I understand what you're talking about, and agree that things like that aren't good, but we're not talking about just clicking through an error message or "are you sure" dialog. These people are controlling the border of a country that is paying them to do it properly and accurately. There are a number of ways to test for continued compliance to a standard including random monitoring and even sending people through whose documents don't match to see if they're caught.
The reason the RFID chips are even in the passports is to bring up info that can be compared to the document in hand. You could require the agent to type in the name, scan a barcode or swipe a magstripe to do the same thing, but the bottom line is that the human in the loop has to look at the damn screen and see if it matches. They have to do this reliably hundreds of times a day. This action isn't an interruption of thier task, it is their task. If that isn't enough to keep them on their toes then they need to find a new line of work.
Then that's a flaw of the user, not the system. You could argue that adding a machine to the process would cause people to become complacent, but even the best lock only works if you use it properly.
The ones the asteroid crashes into would just claim they were the chosen ones and are all going to be with their god. Everyone else is screwed.
They still can't.
From the article:
"Although the tags don't contain personal information, they could be used to track a person's movements through ongoing surveillance..."
Considering the "passport" is the entire document and the tag itself contains no identifying information they still can't clone your passport at a distance. They could clone the tag inside it, but the process of faking your passport would still involve creating the paper hard copy. I'd say if they still have to do everything they used to and also something new then it's more secure, not less.
Of course the ability to recognize and track a person's movements through the use of RFID is still worrying, but it's no easier to fake a passport than it used to be.
That's because nobody wanted to drink the last little bit left in the bottle so they removed it preemptively.
You should read more about the subject if you're going to say wheat wouldn't grow in Afghanistan. Wheat does grow in Afghanistan. Also, most poppy fields are irrigated in some manner. The real reason they don't have a choice is because they either don't own the land they farm on, owe someone too much money to afford the lower profits of wheat, or they don't own enough land to pay for their needs with the lower priced crops.
If you'd really like to know more on the topic you can find a pretty informative paper here.
And mobile phones can be detected by calling you? Just because it was metabolized into some fat you had doesn't mean it's affecting you.