A kid who isn't satisfied with very basic accomplishments is one who will never have a shot at writing a 3D game. I had to explain this to a younger guy the hard way a few weeks ago. It requires real work, drive and willingness to learn. If you can't delay gratification or find gratification in simple accomplishments along the way, you're not even a candidate for success.
If a government employee directs a contractor to do work outside of the scope of their contract, the government still has to pay for it. The government then, in turn, bills the employee for the total cost of the work so ordered. There is no limit that I know of to how far the government will bill their employee for the damage; if they cost the government 2500 man hours at the rate of $200/hour, the employee has to reimburse the government to the tune of $500k.
Every year, a handful of government employees find out the hard way that the government still has some accountability here. Yet the system works just fine.
To create a blockbuster game that appeals directly to women is a massively risky investment. Games like Gears of War and Halo take tens of millions, if not over $100M, to produce. No publisher in their right mind is going to spend that on trying to win female gamers since most female gamers are "casual gamers" who haven't shown a predilection for "hardcore games" of any type. It would be a career or even company-ending move if it didn't go well.
Every company and community sued needs to follow a simple manta: WWLD?
That is What Would Larry (Ellison) Do (if sued over bullshit)?
He'd probably grind the patent troll into the ground until the CEO's family personally suffered for three generations.
The only solution to this behavior is to use the courts in such a way that patent trolls become personally afraid that someone is going to go so hard after their throat in court that even after they want to settle, they'll keep litigating until the troll is bankrupt and then go after the management's families and pick their bones clean in court.
1. China is a centrally-planned economy with highly manipulated currency. 2. The US economy stayed solid between 2001 and 2008 because of federal deficit spending not the work of the US private sector. 3. The private debt in the US jumped dramatically in the last decade or so to compensate for stagnating and declining wages. 4. China is substantially more repressive than the West was during its period of rapid industrialization. Extrajudicial punishment and execution are far more common in modern China than they have been in the West since the end of the feudal era.
To put it succinctly, the US is living in denial on credit and China is nothing more than a highly efficient banana republic.
It got so bad in our office that our senior management paid money to build their own employee-managed network where management can set the IT policies. One of which is "developers and sys admins get admin rights on their own machines." The developers that I've seen who have to work on the corporate IT-managed network regularly curse whatever malevolent spirit controls our company at that level. We actually get work done.
Vox Day is something of a libertarian heretic in noting that the fundamental case for "free trade" is based on a very bad economic model. In fact, when Ricardo made his case for free trade he had to exclude a whole large swath of possible outcomes to make the case positively. Some of those have come true. For example, Ricardo glossed over the issue that if capital were to become mobile between countries, comparative advantage would cease. That is precisely what is happening with NAFTA and our relationship with China; American capital has moved overseas so that "American production" is actually done overseas, giving at least a partial "comparative advantage" to China and Mexico in products that we used to have over them.
The simple solution is to repeal NAFTA and restore our tariffs. "Protectionism" is only an ugly word until you realize that protectionism was actually one of the two pillars of the US economy in the 19th century (the gold standard being the other) and the growth we saw in the 19th century was substantially higher than what we saw in the 20th century. Even the value of the dollar itself went up 50% between 1800 and 1900.
Until we take away the ability of American companies to do production for our domestic markets overseas, none of this will change. Libertarians may find that "immoral," but then there a whole lot of things about doctrinaire libertarianism such as the radical individualism that eschews innate responsibilities that plenty of others (left and right alike) find immoral.
Consequences to natural gas: Russia is the biggest supplier in Europe. Why become a Western vassal of Putin?
Consequence to coal: you're guaranteeing the environmental damage that is theoretical with nuclear power. Plus, it's Italy. The Camorra will probably end up in charge of some aspect of the power that'll make life suck for the environment and public health.
Consequences of wind and solar: good luck funding this build out since you're on the short list of the next European states to have debt default problems. Even if that works, they can only be part of the strategy for a long time.
If you raised these issues with the average voter, they'd probably look at you like a slack-jawed idiot. "Wuuuuhhhhh we have to 'pick our poison'?"
And when electricity rates go up or Putin starts politely telling Italy where it's going and what it'll do when it gets there, they'll be mad as hell.
1. It's a private company, so if it fails it fails on its own dime (rather than getting millions of tax dollars infused into it) 2. It actually sponsors some new research.
This just sounds like a real, outright troll. It doesn't even convert the revenues into more research money.
How about actually being a parent? Sitting down with your child and help them use the Internet safely is far better than trying to either force the usage of filtering applications or ranting about why the content is there to begin with.
And what about plain parental frustration that they can't turn their back on their kids because using Google or Bing can be like playing Minesweeper with porn, violence and/b/ under every bad tile?
The problem is that it's not really possible to say that stumbling upon it is the exception in many cases. If it were, filtering would be so simple that it'd be built into the browser.
Local newspapers rarely have the stones or interest to actually go after local corruption. For example, in the case of Ryan Frederick, the local news was basically regurgitating the local police reports until Radley Balko dug into it and found that it was full of corruption. Much of that corruption, I might add, was just barely concealed beneath the surface.
The fact is that the local media outlets have been compromised for a long time. It's not because of "teh corporashunz" it's because they're both too lazy and too afraid of risking local relationships with key officials who might shut them out of future scoops.
The Catholic Church has a nearly 2,000 year history, has been the state religion in much of the world for most of the time it's been present in various regions, and ironically, the Catholic Church fully recognizes the imperfection of its own members and clerics.
I'd also add that the Pope is probably also zen-like in his humility compared to Steve Jobs. Which is ironic since he's allegedly the Vicar of Christ which essentially means he's Jesus' regent on Earth and when he speaks for the Catholic Church, he's allegedly infallible.
Nonetheless, the US' complete lack of any independent oversight or meritocratic branch is precisely why it was possible for the more gratuitous abuses to have taken place. Everyone in power needs to curry favour from everyone else in power far more than they need anything to actually work.
The US Senate used to serve a very similar role to the House of Lords. It was appointed by the state legislatures without the advice or consent of "The People(tm)" because it was supposed to represent the interest of the individual states as whole bodies against the federal government's authority. That's one of the reasons why you didn't see a major rejection of the 10th amendment and expansive police powers within the states by the federal government until the popular election of senators turned them into federal politicians as opposed to representatives of their state governments with authority over the federal government.
Repealing the 17th amendment and undoing the arbitrary size limit on the House of Representatives would do wonders to reign in the power of the federal government by changing the entire political culture.
Plans to build four new nuclear plants and 32 new coal plants "could easily be replaced by new natural gas plants or additional efficiency and renewable energy, at a lower cost," the study noted.
The federal government still has to let them tap that natural gas at volumes that could replace those nuclear power plants we have. Replacing 20% of our capacity is going to create a huge boom in natural gas production and the federal government has been playing games with drilling permits for over 10 years. If they don't get things moving now, the cost of natural gas will skyrocket which means that both electricity and home heating costs (in quite a few areas) will go up simultaneously.
Unless the average citizen of Western states wants to either drastically reduce their power consumption or accept foreign energy hegemony over their economies, nuclear power is essential at least in the interim. We need to take this as an opportunity to spend money to build better reactors, costs be damned up front, and better facilities for handling waste. The alternatives are simply not acceptable to most people and this isn't something we have the luxury of "having it all on." We need to pick our poison. For my money, I'd rather see the Western governments take some of their budgets and put them directly into fixing this up than seeing a drop in living standards or Russian/Middle Eastern domination of our energy supplies.
I can only imagine that their goal is to limit the variety of tablets on the market in a vain attempt to make their partners design a few high quality devices. At this point, what Microsoft should be worried about is making sure that.NET and their other tools work exceedingly well on those ARM processors so that developers won't end up pulling out their hair trying to maintain compatibility.
Well duh.. BA in philosophy.... WTF use is that other than to get the "has degree" box checked on the resume.
That's precisely how most people see their degrees and why we need to get rid of the concept of most jobs needing a degree. Liberal educations used to be hardcore... closer to modern engineering majors in work loads than what we have today. 100 years ago, a liberally educated student could claim competence in classical languages, math, basic science, music, economics, rhetoric and writing. In other words, such a graduate actually was a good candidate for a serious career in government or the private sector because it took a "somebody" to make it through such a diverse and rigorous program. Today, they're a $50k+ second high school diploma (where a high school diploma back then was equivalent to a B.A. today).
As to this guy, he has a B.A. and a J.D. from an elite university. If anyone can actually comment on the wisdom of this more normal path (his choices in majors, if not university, is closer to what most Americans choose in college), it's him.
Yes, since OS 8.6, actually. I ran OS X 10.0, back when most Mac users today didn't even know what the heck it was. Not that that makes me an expert on OS X security, but I'm hardly a neophyte Mac user.
This simply does not happen on Mac. I am sorry, but it is true. Yes, someone can make a trojan horse and generate a lot of media hype but that boils to someone tricking people into giving the malicious software a chance to run.
And this is how a significant amount of Windows viruses are spread as well. In fact, how many Windows viruses are spread strictly because of Windows security flaws rather than because of IE, Flash and other apps?
You've managed to completely miss the point, just like King_TJ below you in this thread. The problem with their attitude is that it is a license to be stupid. They treat their Mac like it's a rubber-padded room where they can't hurt themselves. Even if it is safer, and I never said it wasn't safer, that is no license to say blatantly stupid things like "I don't have to worry about security because I have a Mac."
Yeah? And how is your Mac going to protect you against a phishing attack? How is it going to protect you when you think you're invincible, download a trojan and run it? These people don't understand that when they enter their password to install an app, they're doing a GUI version of "sudo" to do it. So yes, the ability to get infected by trojans is lessened, but the attitude makes it more likely that they'll confidently run one thinking it's ok because some magic property of their Mac will stop it from hurting them.
My wife supports a lot of Mac users who literally say stuff like "I don't have to worry about security because I have a Mac." In their minds, they can literally just wash their hands of all security considerations because Apple will do everything for them like a bodyguard from Blackwater. Apple has ridden a wave of anti-Microsoft sentiment in no small part by creating or at least encouraging the impression that if you buy a Mac, you'll never have to think again about taking care of your computer except maybe once a blue moon.
We might not have a Bill of Rights enshrined in the constitution, but we have 800 years of common law to draw on, given the courts recognise British court decisions as being relevant to Australian laws. Many of the rights you cry poor over have been ruled on in past legal cases.
The reason our Bill of Rights works fairly well is that it actually enshrined certain common law traditions into an immutable system that Congress cannot legally override--ever. We have a problem of judicial overreach in overriding Congress at times, but Congress has power to stop that which it simply won't use because most members of Congress are too lazy to do their full job.
The purpose of a constitution is to give a framework for laws to hang on; the fact that Americans have enshrined certain laws in their constitution above and beyond the simple amendment of a vote in parliament is admirable, but a fetishistic obsession with a constitution does not make for easily enshrined laws.
To the contrary, American government is increasingly finding itself getting its ass handed to it on certain civil liberties issues by the federal courts. For example, the federal courts are starting to apply the 2nd amendment via 14th amendment incorporation to municipalities, resulting in wholesale federal destruction of gun bans. You can call that a "breech of democracy," but then America was founded as a federal republic where the will of the people is by design supposed to be ignored when it violates constitutional measures until such time as the people either get their states to adopt an amendment or convene a new constitutional convention.
No-one expects that the ordinary person on the street would be able to understand all the relevant laws - lawyers have jobs for a reason, and to argue that laws should be simple enough to be understood by everyone is disingenuous in this day and age.
This is partly true, partly false. In the United States, the rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights were written without subtlety precisely because they were intended to be understood by the common man. There is no hemming and hawing in the Bill of Rights about "reasonable this" or "except when public need demands..." It says, for example, you have a right to a speedy and public trial; you have a right to face your accuser. Period. These are rights which even a true mouth breather could understand if he wants to take the time, and many Americans have. If Australia's written constitution is such a piece of garbage that most people can't understand the general lay of the land with regard to their rights, then that's a real pity. At least the worst that we have to deal with from the courts is judicial shenanigans where they redefine what the meaning of "is, is" to get around something they don't like (but again, at least we have a clearly written constitution on which to make public arguments most people could understand).
And yes, most laws should be simple enough for the average person to understand. Most actions worthy of being called "crimes" don't require a level of intelligence beyond what the average person possesses. That is not to say that every aspect of the system should be made that simple or ever could be, but most laws should be simple enough to be popularly accessible. Having read chunks of the Virginia and federal criminal codes in the past, I can say from observation that it's not that difficult to write basic laws which are understandable by the public--should they choose to read them.
to see how obvious it was that the CIAFBIATFDEANSANRODIA hired an AIDS-ridden African immigrant to go to his room under the pretense of being a "maid" and then lure him into the hallway naked...
Clearly, the poor SOB is the victim of entrapment.
Congress should pass clarifying legislation on fair use, formally codifying into law what is and isn't. Then Congress should let a nationalistic streak run crazy for a little while by passing a defunding bill which defunds all US education programs done in cooperation with British universities in retaliation. Cut the fuckers off at the knees.
(Cue the self-righteous whiners who will say "buh buhhh we push policies on other countries." It's called looking out for your national interests, morons. Up until recently, it was the very reason we constituted a federal government...)
Hence, one could put the entire US tax code into a spare computer somewhere, try a myriad inputs, outputs... and tweak every parameter to see how outputs change. There are agencies who already do this, daily, in response to congressional queries. Alterations of the model must be tested under a wide range of boundary conditions (sample taxpayers.) But if you are thorough, the results of the model will be the results of the system.
The author doesn't get the fact that the IRS itself actually doesn't understand the system. You can't model a system that is so complex that the people in charge of enforcing it literally don't fully understand it.
Slashdot Mirror
A kid who isn't satisfied with very basic accomplishments is one who will never have a shot at writing a 3D game. I had to explain this to a younger guy the hard way a few weeks ago. It requires real work, drive and willingness to learn. If you can't delay gratification or find gratification in simple accomplishments along the way, you're not even a candidate for success.
If a government employee directs a contractor to do work outside of the scope of their contract, the government still has to pay for it. The government then, in turn, bills the employee for the total cost of the work so ordered. There is no limit that I know of to how far the government will bill their employee for the damage; if they cost the government 2500 man hours at the rate of $200/hour, the employee has to reimburse the government to the tune of $500k.
Every year, a handful of government employees find out the hard way that the government still has some accountability here. Yet the system works just fine.
To create a blockbuster game that appeals directly to women is a massively risky investment. Games like Gears of War and Halo take tens of millions, if not over $100M, to produce. No publisher in their right mind is going to spend that on trying to win female gamers since most female gamers are "casual gamers" who haven't shown a predilection for "hardcore games" of any type. It would be a career or even company-ending move if it didn't go well.
Every company and community sued needs to follow a simple manta: WWLD?
That is What Would Larry (Ellison) Do (if sued over bullshit)?
He'd probably grind the patent troll into the ground until the CEO's family personally suffered for three generations.
The only solution to this behavior is to use the courts in such a way that patent trolls become personally afraid that someone is going to go so hard after their throat in court that even after they want to settle, they'll keep litigating until the troll is bankrupt and then go after the management's families and pick their bones clean in court.
You can't easily prove the existence of criminal intent when the criminal doesn't even remember committing the crime.
1. China is a centrally-planned economy with highly manipulated currency.
2. The US economy stayed solid between 2001 and 2008 because of federal deficit spending not the work of the US private sector.
3. The private debt in the US jumped dramatically in the last decade or so to compensate for stagnating and declining wages.
4. China is substantially more repressive than the West was during its period of rapid industrialization. Extrajudicial punishment and execution are far more common in modern China than they have been in the West since the end of the feudal era.
To put it succinctly, the US is living in denial on credit and China is nothing more than a highly efficient banana republic.
It got so bad in our office that our senior management paid money to build their own employee-managed network where management can set the IT policies. One of which is "developers and sys admins get admin rights on their own machines." The developers that I've seen who have to work on the corporate IT-managed network regularly curse whatever malevolent spirit controls our company at that level. We actually get work done.
Vox Day is something of a libertarian heretic in noting that the fundamental case for "free trade" is based on a very bad economic model. In fact, when Ricardo made his case for free trade he had to exclude a whole large swath of possible outcomes to make the case positively. Some of those have come true. For example, Ricardo glossed over the issue that if capital were to become mobile between countries, comparative advantage would cease. That is precisely what is happening with NAFTA and our relationship with China; American capital has moved overseas so that "American production" is actually done overseas, giving at least a partial "comparative advantage" to China and Mexico in products that we used to have over them.
The simple solution is to repeal NAFTA and restore our tariffs. "Protectionism" is only an ugly word until you realize that protectionism was actually one of the two pillars of the US economy in the 19th century (the gold standard being the other) and the growth we saw in the 19th century was substantially higher than what we saw in the 20th century. Even the value of the dollar itself went up 50% between 1800 and 1900.
Until we take away the ability of American companies to do production for our domestic markets overseas, none of this will change. Libertarians may find that "immoral," but then there a whole lot of things about doctrinaire libertarianism such as the radical individualism that eschews innate responsibilities that plenty of others (left and right alike) find immoral.
Consequences to natural gas: Russia is the biggest supplier in Europe. Why become a Western vassal of Putin?
Consequence to coal: you're guaranteeing the environmental damage that is theoretical with nuclear power. Plus, it's Italy. The Camorra will probably end up in charge of some aspect of the power that'll make life suck for the environment and public health.
Consequences of wind and solar: good luck funding this build out since you're on the short list of the next European states to have debt default problems. Even if that works, they can only be part of the strategy for a long time.
If you raised these issues with the average voter, they'd probably look at you like a slack-jawed idiot. "Wuuuuhhhhh we have to 'pick our poison'?"
And when electricity rates go up or Putin starts politely telling Italy where it's going and what it'll do when it gets there, they'll be mad as hell.
At least IV has two things going for it:
1. It's a private company, so if it fails it fails on its own dime (rather than getting millions of tax dollars infused into it)
2. It actually sponsors some new research.
This just sounds like a real, outright troll. It doesn't even convert the revenues into more research money.
And what about plain parental frustration that they can't turn their back on their kids because using Google or Bing can be like playing Minesweeper with porn, violence and /b/ under every bad tile?
The problem is that it's not really possible to say that stumbling upon it is the exception in many cases. If it were, filtering would be so simple that it'd be built into the browser.
Local newspapers rarely have the stones or interest to actually go after local corruption. For example, in the case of Ryan Frederick, the local news was basically regurgitating the local police reports until Radley Balko dug into it and found that it was full of corruption. Much of that corruption, I might add, was just barely concealed beneath the surface.
The fact is that the local media outlets have been compromised for a long time. It's not because of "teh corporashunz" it's because they're both too lazy and too afraid of risking local relationships with key officials who might shut them out of future scoops.
But if I were Pres. Calderon, I'd just authorize the use of ordnance on sight when the Mexican Army encounters one of those...
It practically screams "I'm a safe target to destroy on a shoot first, ask questions later" basis.
The Catholic Church has a nearly 2,000 year history, has been the state religion in much of the world for most of the time it's been present in various regions, and ironically, the Catholic Church fully recognizes the imperfection of its own members and clerics.
I'd also add that the Pope is probably also zen-like in his humility compared to Steve Jobs. Which is ironic since he's allegedly the Vicar of Christ which essentially means he's Jesus' regent on Earth and when he speaks for the Catholic Church, he's allegedly infallible.
The US Senate used to serve a very similar role to the House of Lords. It was appointed by the state legislatures without the advice or consent of "The People(tm)" because it was supposed to represent the interest of the individual states as whole bodies against the federal government's authority. That's one of the reasons why you didn't see a major rejection of the 10th amendment and expansive police powers within the states by the federal government until the popular election of senators turned them into federal politicians as opposed to representatives of their state governments with authority over the federal government.
Repealing the 17th amendment and undoing the arbitrary size limit on the House of Representatives would do wonders to reign in the power of the federal government by changing the entire political culture.
The federal government still has to let them tap that natural gas at volumes that could replace those nuclear power plants we have. Replacing 20% of our capacity is going to create a huge boom in natural gas production and the federal government has been playing games with drilling permits for over 10 years. If they don't get things moving now, the cost of natural gas will skyrocket which means that both electricity and home heating costs (in quite a few areas) will go up simultaneously.
Unless the average citizen of Western states wants to either drastically reduce their power consumption or accept foreign energy hegemony over their economies, nuclear power is essential at least in the interim. We need to take this as an opportunity to spend money to build better reactors, costs be damned up front, and better facilities for handling waste. The alternatives are simply not acceptable to most people and this isn't something we have the luxury of "having it all on." We need to pick our poison. For my money, I'd rather see the Western governments take some of their budgets and put them directly into fixing this up than seeing a drop in living standards or Russian/Middle Eastern domination of our energy supplies.
I can only imagine that their goal is to limit the variety of tablets on the market in a vain attempt to make their partners design a few high quality devices. At this point, what Microsoft should be worried about is making sure that .NET and their other tools work exceedingly well on those ARM processors so that developers won't end up pulling out their hair trying to maintain compatibility.
That's precisely how most people see their degrees and why we need to get rid of the concept of most jobs needing a degree. Liberal educations used to be hardcore... closer to modern engineering majors in work loads than what we have today. 100 years ago, a liberally educated student could claim competence in classical languages, math, basic science, music, economics, rhetoric and writing. In other words, such a graduate actually was a good candidate for a serious career in government or the private sector because it took a "somebody" to make it through such a diverse and rigorous program. Today, they're a $50k+ second high school diploma (where a high school diploma back then was equivalent to a B.A. today).
As to this guy, he has a B.A. and a J.D. from an elite university. If anyone can actually comment on the wisdom of this more normal path (his choices in majors, if not university, is closer to what most Americans choose in college), it's him.
Yes, since OS 8.6, actually. I ran OS X 10.0, back when most Mac users today didn't even know what the heck it was. Not that that makes me an expert on OS X security, but I'm hardly a neophyte Mac user.
And this is how a significant amount of Windows viruses are spread as well. In fact, how many Windows viruses are spread strictly because of Windows security flaws rather than because of IE, Flash and other apps?
You've managed to completely miss the point, just like King_TJ below you in this thread. The problem with their attitude is that it is a license to be stupid. They treat their Mac like it's a rubber-padded room where they can't hurt themselves. Even if it is safer, and I never said it wasn't safer, that is no license to say blatantly stupid things like "I don't have to worry about security because I have a Mac."
Yeah? And how is your Mac going to protect you against a phishing attack? How is it going to protect you when you think you're invincible, download a trojan and run it? These people don't understand that when they enter their password to install an app, they're doing a GUI version of "sudo" to do it. So yes, the ability to get infected by trojans is lessened, but the attitude makes it more likely that they'll confidently run one thinking it's ok because some magic property of their Mac will stop it from hurting them.
My wife supports a lot of Mac users who literally say stuff like "I don't have to worry about security because I have a Mac." In their minds, they can literally just wash their hands of all security considerations because Apple will do everything for them like a bodyguard from Blackwater. Apple has ridden a wave of anti-Microsoft sentiment in no small part by creating or at least encouraging the impression that if you buy a Mac, you'll never have to think again about taking care of your computer except maybe once a blue moon.
The reason our Bill of Rights works fairly well is that it actually enshrined certain common law traditions into an immutable system that Congress cannot legally override--ever. We have a problem of judicial overreach in overriding Congress at times, but Congress has power to stop that which it simply won't use because most members of Congress are too lazy to do their full job.
To the contrary, American government is increasingly finding itself getting its ass handed to it on certain civil liberties issues by the federal courts. For example, the federal courts are starting to apply the 2nd amendment via 14th amendment incorporation to municipalities, resulting in wholesale federal destruction of gun bans. You can call that a "breech of democracy," but then America was founded as a federal republic where the will of the people is by design supposed to be ignored when it violates constitutional measures until such time as the people either get their states to adopt an amendment or convene a new constitutional convention.
This is partly true, partly false. In the United States, the rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights were written without subtlety precisely because they were intended to be understood by the common man. There is no hemming and hawing in the Bill of Rights about "reasonable this" or "except when public need demands..." It says, for example, you have a right to a speedy and public trial; you have a right to face your accuser. Period. These are rights which even a true mouth breather could understand if he wants to take the time, and many Americans have. If Australia's written constitution is such a piece of garbage that most people can't understand the general lay of the land with regard to their rights, then that's a real pity. At least the worst that we have to deal with from the courts is judicial shenanigans where they redefine what the meaning of "is, is" to get around something they don't like (but again, at least we have a clearly written constitution on which to make public arguments most people could understand).
And yes, most laws should be simple enough for the average person to understand. Most actions worthy of being called "crimes" don't require a level of intelligence beyond what the average person possesses. That is not to say that every aspect of the system should be made that simple or ever could be, but most laws should be simple enough to be popularly accessible. Having read chunks of the Virginia and federal criminal codes in the past, I can say from observation that it's not that difficult to write basic laws which are understandable by the public--should they choose to read them.
to see how obvious it was that the CIAFBIATFDEANSANRODIA hired an AIDS-ridden African immigrant to go to his room under the pretense of being a "maid" and then lure him into the hallway naked...
Clearly, the poor SOB is the victim of entrapment.
Congress should pass clarifying legislation on fair use, formally codifying into law what is and isn't. Then Congress should let a nationalistic streak run crazy for a little while by passing a defunding bill which defunds all US education programs done in cooperation with British universities in retaliation. Cut the fuckers off at the knees.
(Cue the self-righteous whiners who will say "buh buhhh we push policies on other countries." It's called looking out for your national interests, morons. Up until recently, it was the very reason we constituted a federal government...)
The author doesn't get the fact that the IRS itself actually doesn't understand the system. You can't model a system that is so complex that the people in charge of enforcing it literally don't fully understand it.