Posts by jake 26707 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2007
... can be extracted profitably?
Serious question. In order to profit, one must have a market. Not much market on the moon, and will not be for a long, long time. If ever. As for shipping bits of moon down to Earth for sale, what up there is worth so much more than what we have here on Earth to justify the cost of shipping?
Makes zero sense.
"When every state can make up their own rules on elections how is that NOT a mess?"
How would you propose the Federal Government force the States into one method? Last time I checked, that is not only against their remit, it also would not be Constitutional.
So we muddle through.
"Unless of course you think it right that people across the road from you in a different state can have different rules on how, when, where and even IF they can be elected?"
Doesn't bother me a bit. The individual States have different laws for many reasons ... but those laws can be, and often are, changed. Don't like it? Do something about it.
And frankly, it's not the disparate methodologies used by the various States that is the problem, rather it's the bad actors involved, gaming the system for their own nefarious purposes ... Gerrymandering being the obvious worst example, followed by lobbyists. Get rid of those two and the US will be a much happier place overnight.
... I was talking about bob's comment/opinion "in the virtual world of teh intarwebs, this would include web sites." None of the laws (and later opinions based on them) make any comment on so-called "social media",
Also, which "civil rights act" are you talking about? There have been many.
Take note that the laws of the mid 1960s protects people based on race, color, religion, or national origin. A quarter century(ish) later, in 1990, they added disabilities to that list. Nowhere does any of them say anything about political bent (nor should they![0]).
Also take note that the laws only describe physical access.[1]
And another note, the law specifically excludes private clubs and religious organizations. One could rather easily make a case for Facebook et al being either, or even both.
[0] IMO, religion shouldn't be included in that list .... religion is a personal choice, like politics or bathing. It is hardly something that you are born with and can't change.
[1] One exception I am aware of: I personally use Lynx as my browser of choice a good deal of the time. When I run across web sites that don't play nice with Lynx, I usually drop a note to the operator asking if they are aware that their site isn't accessible to the blind, and that is illegal under the ADA. Most of the time they actually fix it ... to a degree. Eventually.
But the hoops they would have to jump through make it exceedingly difficult.
See the the U.S. Supreme Court's 1868 ruling in "Texas v. White", which concluded that a State (or States) could secede by gaining approval of both houses of Congress and then obtaining ratification by three fourths of the nation's legislatures.
That's the non-violent way. Then there is Revolution ... If enough people are pissed off at the Federal Government and civil unrest becomes extreme, the State(s) and the Nation might simply agree to part ways to minimize the damage.
Before you ask, no, I do not want to live to see such a thing come about. Especially not the second option.
Well, to be fair and honest, two of Trump's self-declared "best friends" are the former head of the KGB and President For Life Vladimir Putin and everybody's favorite charmer, Dictator For Life and fat Elvis impersonator Kim Jong-un ... Seems to me both have showed tendencies to support Communism, making Trump (and his Republican supporters) Commie sympathizers at the very least ...
Facebook et al didn't claim that, the Law states it. It goes on to say that (paraphrasing) the copyright holder is responsible for their own content, not FB & friends.
Facebook et al is still free to nuke stuff at will. Their system, their rules.
So yes, they can both have cake and eat it. By law. In the US, anyway. YMMV.
Don't like this? Change it. The mechanism exists.
Just don't tell them the cake is a lie ...
"Unless they collude with others to CANCEL you."
They can try all they want. I'll still be able to communicate for the simple reason that I don't use them today, I have never used them, and I never will use them. The Internet existed long before they did, and it will exist long after they go the way of Enron.
"I suspect if you were FAMOUS enough... they just MIGHT. Right Mr. Trump?"
Trump wasn't cancelled. He wasn't even shut up. Rather, he was removed from a few online systems for abusing the resources of those systems. He is free to use other systems, if they want him. If they don't ... well, maybe it was something he said. There is a consequence for one's actions in this world. Even online.
"Imagine if it were applied to you: political signs supporting politics you disagree with set up on your front lawn that it are illegal for you to remove."
Daft simile. There is no such law ... besides, even if there were I will still be free to pick up and throw away litter on my property.
"How about if we all just let anyone say anything (so long as it's not openly abusive or illegal), put a BIG FAT DISCLAIMER on the entire web site, and let people make their own choices?"
In general that is exactly what happens. However, if somebody causes too much workload for the staff, it makes economic sense to remove that someone from the (privately held) system.
Or are you suggesting that any given Company should subsidize people whose views are in opposition to that of the Company?
Should the local Lutherin Church be forced to run adds for the local Synagogue or Mosque on their outdoor message board? Should the local Ford dealer be forced to place the logo, address and telephone number of the local Chevy dealer on their rotating sign? Should the (much hated) video advertising on your local gas pump be forced to run ads for the station across town?
"I imagined I were a religious confectionery maker forced to write slogans on a cake that supported opinions I disagreed with..."
Personally, I never understood why the couple in question insisted on doing business with a known bigot that hated them ... Personally, I'd find another baker. And tell all my friends and family why. If I used facebook (or whatever), I'd make a note there, too. And on Yelp, etc. I sure as hell wouldn't give them one thin dime of my money. It's the principle of the thing ... the idiot outed itself, I'd do my level best to legally ostracize it so nobody else in my community runs afoul of the twit.
Bob,
This is quite different from a lunch counter refusing service to neo-conservatives.
What society is trying to figure out is whether the Internet is like radio/TV broadcasting or publishing newspapers ... or something else entirely.
Personally, I see it as more of a community notice board, where anyone can put up any notice they like, subject to the whims of the owner of the board. Don't like the whims of the owner? Move along until you find a board that suits you.
I'm sure you're old enough to remember such message boards outside grocery stores, post offices & etc. and the differing rules each one operated under. Note that almost all of them had a disclaimer about the validity of messages, and reserved the right to remove any message that they deemed unfit for that board, in that location.
Note that freedom of the press belongs to he who owns one.
Note also that while you CAN get your personal message printed on the front page of the newspaper of your choice, you'll pay a pretty penny for the privilege. For a little less money you can place a classified ad. However, note that the publisher of the paper is free to nix your missive on purely arbitrary grounds (but usually because it would cost him more to handle the complaints than he would profit from the advert).
Also note that you can get your message broadcast on TV or radio, but again you'll pay through the nose for it. And it'll probably be prefaced and ended with a disclaimer ("The views expressed in the following/preceding message do not necessarily express the views of the Broadcaster, its advertisers, employees, or anyone else who has come within several million parsecs of the broadcast tower.", we've all heard it.). And again, if dealing with the bitching about it would outweigh the potential profit, the Company, having an obligation to the shareholder(s), might nix it.
But one thing I'm 100% certain of is that YOU are not allowed to use MY infrastructure to get your message out ... at least not without compensating me in any manor I see fit. I bought the gear, I pay for the electricity, I pay any license fees required, I pay the maintenance of and on the system, and for any consumables. It's mine, not yours. Period.
N.B. The final paragraph not withstanding, I would be quite happy to host Bob's personal web site gratis, if he had one and I was still in the business of serving web pages. Bob neither abuses the network, nor commits abuse on the network, and so would probably not noticeably affect my workload. HOWEVER, there is no way I'd turn him loose in my printshop, not without proof he knew how to operate a press ... Parts are scarce and expensive these days!
The thing is that Facebook isn't defining who is lying or telling the truth globally (or even at any given national level). They are defining it on Facebook, for Facebook. If they want to ban Facebook-defined liars, said liars are still free to lie tell their version of the truth on one or more of numerous other places, both on and off line.
"If you take Facebook side in Texas story, you are supporting totalitarianism."
Don't be stupid. Facebook can only ban me from Facebook. They can hardly ban me from ElReg, or Usenet, or IRC. Or my Congresscritter's office, for that matter.
Truth be told, I've already banned me from facebook. And google, microsoft, apple, amazon, etc. It hasn't affected my ability to communicate even a little tiny bit. It can hardly be totalitarianism if they can't even get the `total` part right, now can it? If there is one thing the Internet allows, it's options.
It was never actually the unique "only we can do it!" option most Texans think it was/is. ANY State can secede, if they manage to jump through enough hoops.
Its highly unlikely to ever happen, though. Splitting a large state into two or more separate States is far more likely, but I doubt anyone reading this will live to see such a thing happening.
As a side note, Mexico doesn't need that kind of backhanded compliment.
"I can't imagine a revenue generating company settling for a 15% failure rate of anything."
I've seen so-called "devops" implementing outfits in the 60+% power-on failure range for customer-facing system upgrades ... and happy about it. Seems the WWW is ephemeral anyway, so why bother with little things like QA/QC, as long as it's implemented quickly.
Then again, the very same "devops" implementing outfits seem to only exist to place as much investor money into the pockets of the principals as possible.
"They must just be making everything up as they prance about"
Well, yes. Thus it ever was, since humans settled together in the first crude cities to make the growing, protecting and harvesting of beer grains easier and more efficient.
Wait ... you didn't honestly believe that politicians actually know anything at all about the shit they prattle on about, did you? Shirley you know that they will say anything their handlers write for them in the hopes of getting their meal ticket re-elected, right?
I dunno 'bout the rest of ElReg's commentards, but if I had a 15% failure rate on deployment, I'd have been out of business as a consultant decades ago ... and while I'd be called a lot of names, "Elite" wouldn't have been one of them.
Please tell me you missed out a decimal point, ElReg.
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