It has nothing to do with capitalism. It has everything to do with unregulated corporate greed. They are NOT the same things. The same kind of greed was seen very prominently in countries that called themselves Socialist and even Communist. So don't blame "capitalism" for it. It's cronyism, plain and simple.

And this is almost laughably wrong:

I call BS. They don't "fear" it will do anything of the kind. What they fear is that it will put a stop to their monopolistic control, and monopolistic prices, and end their ability to pocket tax money given them for infrastructure.

I mean this literally: you can hardly believe a word they say anymore.

Why?

The Constitution very clearly gives Congress the authority to regulate interstate commerce. And it is pretty much indisputable that the Internet involves interstate commerce.

I, for one, think Congress has tried to stretch the "interstate commerce" excuse way too far, in order to regulate many things that are not directly involved with interstate commerce. Like growing marijuana.

But the internet is not one of those things.

I didn't hang with other photographers, and the models I worked with were not already-known professionals, so I don't have any way to make a comparison.

Also, experiments done decades ago, in caves with no day-night cycle, led to longer awake cycles much like those. So I really don't see what the problem is here.

Naturally, it takes time to adjust. Shift-work studies have shown that it takes the body AT LEAST 30 days to fully adjust to a new schedule, some people as long as 60. Interrupt it before then and you end up with problems.

Exactly. I don't mind including a good tool that does its job well and leaves everything else alone. But I've run across at least 2 very sad "syndromes" that add-ons sometimes cause:

The first syndrome is represented by libraries that take over everything and unnecessarily restrict your otherwise legitimate actions, because they ASSUME everything will be done with or through them. 2 great examples come to mind from the Ruby world: Formtastic, and Devise.

I dumped Formtastic because it insisted on generating its own <ul> for the form, and <li> tags for all the elements, which prevented you from laying out your forms your own way. Trying to wrap elements in named or classed <div>s so you could do your own layout resulted in invalid HTML. Maybe Formtastic has improved since then, I don't know. I discussed this problem with the author, and his response was "Why would you want to do that?" Which just illustrates my point.

Devise is way too intrusive and makes too many assumptions. Besides being based around unproven Bcrypt (which has never been fully security audited), it tries to force you to do everything else its way, too. It may be "customizable", but in my experience that's far more trouble than it's worth. My opinion is that most people who use Devise do so because they don't understand how to do it themselves.

The second syndrome is "copy and paste development". This irritates me to no end. "Why don't we just use X? It already does that." "Well, because it's like shooting an ant with a cannon. A cannon that also wants to wash your dishes."

The right tool for the right job. Often, especially for small jobs, it's vastly preferable to roll your own tools, and do it your way.

> Think about it as being along the lines of the "just say no" campaign

Yes, I did, that was a moronic campaign too. Just like the "just say no" campaign, its entirely useless slogan by people who don't understand a problem and who have no desire to actually help anything, they just want an excuse to say "A solution exists, so go fuck yourself and leave me alone"

Yes because basic human compassion for your own family is such a negative trait, maybe we should beat it right out of people?

Good luck. Yah, ALL we have to do is convince a significant number of people to ignore basic human empathy if that empathy is not within our narrow world view. People are free to live how they want as long as they do so in the way you have proscribed for them, problem solved eh?

Actually this is probably the best answer. I like this better than my own answer of using a serial link.

I even have such an adapter, and didn't think of it.

The Laplink idea was copied by Microsoft. If it has one of the more recent versions of XP, you can use a serial link.

You did not say how recent the destination machine is. If it has a serial port and XP or 98, you can just use a null modem cable. If it's a newer machine, you will have to use a null modem cable AND a serial-to-usb cable or adapter on the newer end. Further, if you are on Windows 7 or later, you will have to install Virtual PC and then XP mode (both free from Microsoft), so you can run a virtual XP window.

Then start up serial networking and transfer your data. One machine is 'host' and the other is 'client'.

And that's when you re-negotiate, or quit.

From my experience, it's easy to make bad estimates because bad estimates are easy to make. If it's a big project, take your worst possible guess, and multiply by 1.5.

One of the biggest reasons bad estimates are so easy to make, is that the stakeholders "forget" to include too many of the details. And even, sometimes, some of the big essential features. It's debatable how many of these things are really "forgotten", versus not known or just intentionally left out to lower the estimate.

Therefore, I go about it this way:

I write out clearly what the specs are. Often this is just a repeat of the stakeholder's own specs. I estimate each major "feature" in the specs.

My standard contract states that this is only an estimate, based on the written scope of work just described. If at any point it looks like the work will take more than 10% over the estimate, it is time to examine why and the terms must be re-negotiated.

If any significant changes or additions are made to the scope of work, the terms must be re-negotiated.

These stipulations make sure everybody is talking, and if anything goes over estimate, everybody knows why. It also makes sure that if they add more work, I get more money.

I have a third stipulation I put in every contract: single point of contact. The stakeholder(s) must appoint one person, and one person only, who is to give me instructions and discuss the specifications. Nobody else, even the CEO, is allowed to do that.

I insist on these. So far, I have not had anybody turn me down because they thought the terms were unreasonable. That last clause keeps me from getting caught between conflicting instructions from different people. Other than that one, these are SOP for many engineering contracts. I just borrowed from those.

Smith actually wrote that it was necessary for the government to intervene when monopoly or oligopoly loomed. He said that was necessary to keep everybody working within the bounds of free market.

It worked pretty well with telephones for 40-50 years. Granted, significant corruption was leaking in toward the end, but for a very long time the ill effects of monolithic monopoly were kept at bay, while we kept the advantages (i.e., world's best interoperability, reasonable rates for their day).

During that time, in some countries in Europe which allowed competition in the market, you couldn't call the neighbor on one side because he was using a different phone company, and even the respective voltages were not compatible. And you couldn't call the other neighbor on the other side, because she was on yet a different company. And there were 3 times as many wires on the poles.

Just as with regulation, I am tempted to agree. But on the other hand, those State laws are pretty definitely protectionist and anti-competitive in nature. Considering that they also very definitely involve interstate commerce (the internet), I would -- very reluctantly -- have to side with the FCC on this one too.

The vast majority of the time I would be in favor of States' rights to see to their own business. But again I think this is really a necessary thing. I am just as much in favor of the cities which took a stand against monopoly pressure.

In other words, in both cases, I feel it is a case of "necessary evil". There are antitrust issues at both levels.

This has zero to do specifically with "the consent of the model". It has to do with who owns copyright to the picture.

That is no small thing. Generally speaking, if you allow someone to take pictures in exchange for money, you have waived any further right to those pictures. The photographer owns them.

That can change by prior agreement (a signed contract or waiver being the classic examples). But without that, it is generally as I stated. As someone who formerly photographed models, I researched the law and I know it well.

The point being: a model very seldom has any legal rights to the pictures or videos. A photographed subject might, if not taken under commercial circumstances. But that's a different matter.

What Reddit did is in fact censorship: in response to a few people abusively posting pictures they did not own, they have effectively banned the practice, because very few if any people are going to "prove" copyright ownership before posting.

So, as I said elsewhere: they are restricting everybody over the abuses of a few. That's classic censorship. Do they have a right to do that? Maybe. Who cares?

I have no opinion about that at this time, since that is neither what they did or what I wrote about.