Some restaurants have taken the step of banning cameras, or at least have established a 'no flash' rule.

Here was I thinking it was because they fear nobody's going to go to a restaurant serving a tiny portion size. The more the cook fancies himself as a great chef, the less you'll get on your plate.

A true capitalist would not have started such a company off a government grant [...]

A true capitalist takes seed money from whoever is willing to offering it at the lowest price. Only a nitwit ideologue lets their personal prejudices get in the way of making money.

anonieuweling (536832) wrote:

`Sanctions` are acts of WAR

Uh, no, they are not.

Quite true. They're not an act of war of themselves, just the last non-combat stage before an American war against whichever third world nation they've opted to target during this Presidential term, usually for resources or strategic advantage.

Sanctions by non-US groups tend to be more about changing behavior rather than intentionally starving a nation to weaken it prior to an invasion.

The whole point of morality, religion, and by extension laws [...]

Man, I'm so glad I live in a democracy rather than that theocracy you're living in.

Anywhere that would cut out coffee from the budget is quite frankly insane. It's a minuscule expense compared to the HR budget and improves productivity dramatically when people would otherwise be flagging (early mornings for night owls, afternoons for early birds).

The ability to provide free, legal performance enhancing drugs is one of the few negligible-cost productivity boost techniques available. You'd have to be both petty and highly incompetent as a manager to do away with it.

Do the British say, "One April 2010?"

Essentially, yes, they do: "First of April, 2010. Twentythird of July, 2009." As do Australians and AFAIK all the English speaking nations apart from the US. The US really is out on its own when it comes to a lot of this stuff. (Anyone with any sense uses ISO format though because the numbers sort better in a list.)

Oh, the industry is moving to BSD-style licenses? When? What industry?

A fair point to make, that. Very few successful commercial enterprises have ever used a GPL license for their software. For the few that did, their GPL software ended up acting as loss-leaders for other technologies or for generating support contracts.

Speaking subjectively, I can't imagine why a commercial company would want GPL software anyway. BSD license code attracts older, more accomplished and experienced developers with a work ethic they've acquired from working in a professional environment. GPL code attracts young cowboys and ideological zealots -- teenagers and students who don't have bills to pay, or a family to support, and have not had to develop those professional skills.

Did they actually use GPL-style licenses before?

I doubt many companies themselves did, but, most software developers and development managers in those companies would have been exposed to the GPL at various times in their lives -- particularly back when they themselves were students, living cheaply at home.

What the iPod Tells Us About the World Economy

What the linked story really demonstrates is you can work product placement for Apple gear into nearly any article whatsoever, not just the reviews for competing IT products, non-competing IT products and "competing if you squint hard enough and long enough" products.

The news media's always been fairly open to writing positive copy for their advertisers, but, in the current economic climate of falling sales and falling advertising there must be a powerful temptation to go that little bit too far.

It might be a good idea for you to take notes on this, because it can happen in your election system too. It happened in Vermont (2009) and Peru (2006) using similar systems

Yep. Australia have only been running preferential elections since 1918 and use it in all elections: federal, state and local government. What would we know, eh? Elections in one US state (of unknown infrastructure quality) and a third world nation are obviously much more authorative.

people ranking their favorite candidate higher caused the second-choice candidate to lose and threw the election to the third-choice candidate.

What, precisely, is wrong with that? If your second choice candidate's first choice vote is so poor that they're eliminated in a counting round, they deserved to go. They simply weren't very popular.

Preferential systems encourage lots of parties to take part, so it's never the three corner contest you're fearful of.

Maybe it's a language divide. Here in America, "throw away your vote" means to cast a vote in a way that (1) doesn't further your interests or (2) works against your interests.

In what way does voting for a torture supporter further your interests in human rights? It just reinforces the perception of torture's popularity.

If enough of you actually voted for a candidate whose policies you like, instead of the corporate proto-fascists you believe are likely to win, you might actually elect them. (Or at least give the villains a scare back to some sort of policy semi-sanity.)

So, given a candidate who's more evil and a candidate who's less evil, you'd just as soon take the more evil one? You don't see a difference?

I get to say I voted for a party I believe in. The rest of you collectively voted for evil. Had more of you had the courage to vote for a party you believe in, your country might not be where it is today.

Personally, I prefer to do what I can to reduce evil, bit by bit, rather than give up entirely just because I can't eliminate it all at once.

By caving in, you gained absolutely nothing. Just look at where such thinking got your Democrats Party in the Shrub era ;-).

I gather from your comment history that you're Australian. If that's correct, you don't actually have a modern preferential voting system: you have IRV, which is subject to most of the same criticisms as our voting method, even though it seems on the surface as though you can vote your true preferences without penalty.

Hate to break it to you, but, we can indeed vote for our true preferences without penalty. For example, preferences from Greens Party and Australian Democrats voters makes up a significant proportion of the Australian Labor Party's "Two Party Prefered" vote and has edged them over the line a lot of the time (particularly in the 1980s and 1990s). I don't know which academic you've been reading, but, you've been woefully informed about what actually happens.

For example, let's say I'm opposed to torture, and I'm voting in a race between a pro-torture candidate and an anti-torture candidate.

How likely is that with America's Republican and Democrat parties, though? They're both pro-torture, as can be seen from the Senate voting record. Seriously, your choices range from cartoonish villains to cartoonish super-villains over there.

If I cast my vote in such a way that it makes the greater of the evils candidate more likely to win (the outcome I don't want!), Americans would say I'm "throwing my vote away". What do you call it in your country?

Hope you don't mind the edit, as it doesn't change the intent. If you're voting for an lesser evil, you're throwing your vote away by perpetuating the election of evil.

Luckily, my country has a modern preferential voting system so we're not prone to these prehistoric ballot box conundrums. Hope to be live long enough to see the US at least catch up to the 20th century in this particular area, but, it's not looking too likely so far.

Furthermore, in the short term (i.e. the next couple decades), voting for a third party candidate harms your interests. It's worse than throwing your vote away.

I really don't get Americans. The only way you can throw away your vote is by voting for a party whose policies you don't support.

There's no "I voted for the guy who's kept the torture camps open, but, at least I didn't vote for the other guy who was worse." Dude, you still voted for a guy who keeps torture camps open. That's not something to see as a positive result.