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Comment Re:what is this nonsense about 3D printers and gun (Score 1) 116

I'm sure that you think you have a point, but I haven't a clue as to what it is. Even as a troll this is sub-par. If you're trying to be serious you really need to think more about how to present your argument.

You are, I think, responding to the claim that you aren't noticing that many small changes can yield an important difference. What you intend your response to mean I find opaque.

Comment Re:Start with copyright (Score 1) 116

Right. That, after all was the purpose of copyright. To give people a *LIMITED* monopoly. When it expired, then everyone would inherit the work as a common good.

I would argue that 17 years is too long. 5 years with one (fairly expensive) renewal would be better, though the ideal number does differ between fields of endeavor. I could also go with a 3 year first copyright, a renewal for, say, $100. And an nth renewal for $100^n. (You could consider the original publication to be the 0th renewal if you want, and charge a $1 registration fee needed if you intend to apply for any renewals.)

Comment Re:Start with copyright (Score 1) 116

That was because the rules were only applied in favor of white males. As written, however, they work quite well where the population is thinly distributed and the communications are slow. They aren't perfect, but I can't think of anything better.

As things are, however, those rules would not work and could not be made to work. They should, however, have been properly ammended rather than being ignored.

Comment Re:Cuts Both Ways (Score 1) 368

Sounds like a win-win, so why is anyone opposed?

(Well, OK, the Seattle police have some decent arguments, but they also appear to have a shady history which causes one to doubt that the arguments raised are their real reasons. Still, they *are* decent arguments. I'm not sure what the resolution should be, but I am sure it should involve continual taping to an archival store that cannot be edited...which is an impossible ideal, but get as close to it as possible.)

Comment Re: Obviously (Score 1) 368

Well if he'd had his camera going, this would be made clearly obvious. So why are the police against camera? (To be fair, many of them aren't. But I'm talking about the ones that are. Which to me means they've got something to hide, if nothing more than a feeling that their privacy is being invaded, and where they were dominant, now they are supervised.)

Unfortunately there have been enough instances where the police are obviously lying and at fault that I prefer objective evidence that doesn't require that I theorize to fill in the pieces. E.g., there are power stains on someone's hands, but how do you know that he got them when you think he did? A reasonable hypothesis is that he got them struggling to take the officer's gun, but it this actually what happened? And if he was 150 feet away when he was shot, was he fleeing? A camera would remove uncertainties...provided it was secured against tampering. (Yeah, OK, nothing's certain. It could reduce uncertainties quite significantly.)

And why is anyone against having a camera to prevent this kind of uncertainty?

Comment Re:Violence against police ... (Score 1) 368

How could you possibly get an answer to that question that you could trust? It's a reasonable question, and my guess would be quite a small percentage. But I can't think of a single way of getting the information that I would trust. I *would* wager a small sum that you could show it would be to the officer's benefit to blame someone else even if he knew he was at fault.

Comment Re:Violence against police ... (Score 2) 368

You are correct about "the rule", the problem is that one instance of vile behavior can totally cancel out over a hundred instances of good behavior. Depending on how bad it is it can cancel out over a thousand. And while there is a definite limit as to how good a cop can be, the limit as to how bad he can be is extremely high. And they don't effectively "self police". Even the "good cop" tends to feel that he must protect the bad cop, no matter what he is guilty of. And tends to act to protect him.

OTOH, in many parts of the community, there is much more expectation of encountering a bad cop than a "good cop". And this is justified by what gets reported by believable sources. (That you believe other sources is almost irrelevant.) And there is, unfortunately, a certain amount of evidence to show that the perception of those who don't trust the police is correct. This ranges from their armed intrusion into the wrong house, and shooting the residents to the less violent, but much more frequent action which have created the "crime description" of "driving while brown or black". Please note that it doesn't seem to matter what the race of the officer is, so I tend to consider this abuse a "crime of power" rather than "racial intolerance", but I admit to being uncertain about the reasons.

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I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"

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