I think of IPv6 like driving a stick shift car that you skip a gear with. If you're lucky, the engine won't stall but even if it doesn't, you'll be accelerating very slowly until the RPMs catch back up to where they should be. In IPv6's case they skipped 3 gears because they knew the car couldn't possibly stall, but here we are, barely accelerating after all this time.
Hm, this analogy is awkward. Definitely agree that it's taken a lot longer to become standard than I would like.
I was discussing this with a coworker today, and we were reflecting on a similar technical rollout that really did take of. The various ascii encodings -> UTF8. This was a big shift at the time and took a lot of time to fix. In fact I know of one large DB that, after a huge amount of outreach with customers, was only finally decommed and replaced with a UTF8 last year.
We decided the big difference was that UTF8 solved a huge problem that effected everyone. Was backward compatible with all basic ascii, and was an easy upgrade in many cases (only a problem if you bastardized stored character sets faking out the system and storing them in a different charset).
IPv6 is nicely backward compatible with IPv4, but in general it is not solving a problem most people have (yet). Most sites work fine with IPv4; IPv6 for many is just work with no significant benefit in general.
That being said, I really want IPv6 to become the only option for a lot of reasons; but there is no stron forcing function.
> but in general it is not solving a problem most people have (yet).
I don't think that that's actually true. People have massive problems due to NAT and overlapping address ranges and stuff ... but it's just commonly accepted as the way IP works, people don't realize that they could just deploy IPv6 and do away with all those problems.
Also, most mobile carriers have been solving real device addressing problems with IPv6 for a few years now. In the mobile space IPv6 is the present, and the transition has been mostly seamless enough most people haven't noticed outside some early hiccups.
Some people sure. But it's nowhere near the number of people that UTF8 solved for.
It would definitely make people's network connectivity simpler and less error prone, but I just don't see it as a huge pressing need.
If NATs didn't exist at all, then this would have been such a huge issue that it would have been needed. For most though, NAT is generally good enough.
I guess for most simple home users, it's currently not a huge pressing issue, true. But anything beyond that and you constantly run into issues. And that includes home users who also have to use some VPN to their workplace ...
But that does not mean that NAT really is good enough, it just means that deployed systems nowadays just take it as a given that NAT exists, and any technology that isn't compatible with NAT simply doesn't exist. Which makes it less of a pressing issue in a way, but that does not mean that it doesn't still cause huge costs even to home users in terms of missed opportunities of a NAT-free world.
I see that. And in general I agree with you. I think the only thing being debated here is the urgency of the change, and the harm being done to networks.
Many companies get away with NAT just fine; and that's the entire point. It works well enough that for many it's just not an urgent issue.
Like you said, it would make a lot of technology easier to deploy and build. The orthogonal comment about the Cellphone industry pushing the issue is right on the money. For them this significantly simplies their network management (which has tons of devices moving around). For laptops on wifi this would probably be better as well, but there so much is just solved by the fact that the Web is capable of tracking users across IPs with cookies.
Again I'm not arguing against IPv6; I'm just trying to better understand why it's deployment isn't being done as urgently as that of other things, like UTF8. I think the answer is in the fact that we've built so many workarounds that it stretched IPv4 well beyond its end-of-life.
> I think the answer is in the fact that we've built so many workarounds that it stretched IPv4 well beyond its end-of-life.
Well, that is true in a way (I mean, without NAT (or something similar), there obviously would not be any way to keep going, so, yeah, in that sense, NAT has made things somewhat bearable instead of completely unworkable, thus making the migration to v6 less urgent).
But my point is that the reason why people (companies in particular) aren't migrating to a large extent seems to me to not be because it wouldn't be worth it for them, but rather that they lack the understanding to see that it would be. There are lots and lots of admins out there who operate IP networks and essentially have no clue of IP routing. They have grown up in a world of NAT, and just understand "the router" as "the public internet termination point" or whatever you want to call it. They don't even see NAT as a workaround, but as the obvious and natural state of affairs, because, what are you gonna do if you want to connect more than one machine to your internet connection? You need a router! And router is synonymous with NAT gateway, because that's why you need the router ... or something.
If your whole mindset doesn't even allow you to see the possibility of the natural state of the internet (i.e. end-to-end addressability of all participants), you won't ever notice all the workarounds that you are using. And if, say, port forwarding doesn't occur to you as being a workaround, but rather the obvious thing you just need to do to make some internal machine reachable from the outside, then you also never get the idea that IPv6 might be the solution. You just assume that IPv6 obviously also has to have port forwarding, because you still want to make internal machines reachable from the outside, don't you?
One of my favorite movies, and favorite one of the genre by far. If anyone who loves this movie hasn't seen the commentary track on the DVD, get it immediately. The actors present on the commentary are all in character so it sort of feels like a second movie.
I've heard rumours that, in contrast, the laserdisc release had the actors' commentary au naturale -- it's almost worth trying to hunt down a player and a copy, as I've never seen a rip published.
I have a copy of all three commentaries, including the in-character, as actors, and also the commentary with Rob Reiner, producer Karen Murphy, and editors Robert Leighton and Kent Beyda.
Feel free to email me if you'd like an MP3 you can mux in. It's a shame they didn't include this with the Criterion release.
I largely agree but this whole issue needs to be looked at through eyes of compassion first and foremost. Jesus stood by a woman who was about to be stoned for adultery and told her would-be killers that he who was without sin should cast the first stone. Then he began to write in the sand, it doesn't say what he wrote, but it was probably some of the sins of the would be stoners and they fled quickly,
realizing they were no better than she was. I think most americans who would applaud a 90 day sentence for a small quantity of drugs for personal use would feel guilty reading that story in the Bible in that context.
People forget that those who turn to hard drugs don't tend to do so because they're simply rebels spoiling for a fight with the justice system. They do so because they're people and people have problems, every single one of us. There needs to be a return to compassion but as long as drug users are vilified in every possible way on every possible television show, that won't change. Hollywood could lead the return to compassion if it wanted to by raising awareness of what is actually happening in people's lives, how drugs are seen as a (usually bad) solution or an escape and give concrete workable examples of how that can change. In the end, it's a problem of ignorance, i.e. people believe and act one way when they would be best off doing something entirely different were they armed with more information about their problems. Rather than 90 days in jail, it could be 9 weeks of counseling for one or two hours while the person remains a productive member of society.
So I just don't think attacking this as a problem with long sentences is going to do anything to help anyone. You might get sentences greatly reduced, but have you actually helped the root problem?
My take on it is somewhat similar with the difference being that since the scene involved invoking a Mosaic law we should look that up and there we find that the 'justification' for capital punishment is that 'lest' the rest of the (presumably holy) community gets infected as in "one bad apple" process. That would make writing on the sand an analog for the /futility/ of keeping /records/ of judgment for an un-Holy people who are (spiritually) as sands in a dune subject to careless winds of material existence.
> So I just don't think attacking this as a problem with long sentences is going to do anything to help anyone. You might get sentences greatly reduced, but have you actually helped the root problem?
The justice system isn't supposed to deal with root problems, but it is supposed to punish crime with a sentence that is both guaranteed, proportional, and rapidly executed. In this case, the very fact this guy goes to jail for drug possession is just completely insane.
a good (compassionate) justice system is supposed to deal with:
- safety, for society (removing direct threats)
- deterrence, for other would-be criminals in society
- rehabilitation, providing the opportunity to "be better" for the convicted
- providing a minimal "lightning rod" to address and quell the (human/societal) instinctual/primal urge for vengeance
Note that the latter is no more than a smokescreen to distract ourselves when we're not being aware of what this lust for vengeance basically is. On the animal level (present in all primates and certain mammals), there is a very fundamental desire for "fairness". It's a very rudimentary "moral" system, evolved to deal with a fundamentally amoral universe. It kind of works but it's not very optimal. Humans are smarter than that now, and we can observe this desire and figure out better systems. It's called "ethics", we've been puzzling over it for thousands of years, it's not solved but we have figured out a thing or two.
Vengeance is the opposite of forgiveness. If you know about forgiveness, if you ever had to forgive something that was somewhat hard to forgive, and did the necessary introspection to succeed, you've learned this: You do the forgiving for yourself, not for the other person. It's a change in your perception of their guilt, you're not clearing a "guilt flag" in them, they still did what they did, you don't need to forget, you don't need to offer them anything, you don't even need to let them know you've forgiven them. Forgiveness is the decision to let go of this primal lust for vengeance. And that can be a hard decision if the thing the other did is very bad. And that's good because it should not be a light decision. Enacting the vengeance can temper this lust, but if you've already found better ways that deal with the first three points above, that is its only function left.
So we can find better, more compassionate ways to deal with that, too. Which is why some form of punishment must be part of a justice system; It doesn't feel fair otherwise and you can't expect the whole of society to just get over that. Because we're still monkeys and in large numbers, on average, even more so. But just like we've subverted so many of our other primal urges in ways that are more useful in a modern society, we can really make this punishment as symbolic as our primal instincts allow for. If we've taken care of those first three points, that's really all there's left to do.
And you don't need a lot, at all. It needs to be cemented in culture, but it can be done. Proof is, assuming that US humans are sufficiently similar to humans everywhere (which I like to believe, don't you? :) ), all those societies on this earth that have way less harsh punishments, shorter sentences and less awful prisons (US prisons are a bit on the... ehm.. medieval side of the spectrum). They don't get up in arms or feel that justice isn't "fair" enough any more than that nameless, shifting part of society that will always complain punishment isn't harsh enough. Which doesn't actually get any less than it is in the US with harsher punishments. Neither are these societies being overrun by criminals.
I think I agree with you, though vengeance is related to crimes against someone. Drug usage or possession is not of that kind. It's often seen as harm done to yourself, maybe.
> - deterrence, for other would-be criminals in society
In fact, the whole concept of criminal deterrence could be seen as an equation with several variables: the outcome of the crime, the probability of being caught, and how harsh the punishment will be. The idea that sentencing a micro-sample of (very unlucky) people with extreme punishment will detere others from transgressing the law is arguable, I personally believe it's incorrect, now even if I'm wrong it'd be deterrence based on fear of unfair punishment, instead of fear of punishment. A model with certainty of fair punishment seams more performant to achieve deterrence (it also probably costs way more money!). It also has the benefit of not ruining the lives of the unlucky members of the micro-sample :P
> And you don't need a lot, at all. It needs to be cemented in culture, but it can be done. Proof is, assuming that US humans are sufficiently similar to humans everywhere (which I like to believe, don't you? :) ), all those societies on this earth that have way less harsh punishments, shorter sentences and less awful prisons (US prisons are a bit on the... ehm.. medieval side of the spectrum). They don't get up in arms or feel that justice isn't "fair" enough any more than that nameless, shifting part of society that will always complain punishment isn't harsh enough. Which doesn't actually get any less than it is in the US with harsher punishments. Neither are these societies being overrun by criminals.
Of course they are! Humans are the same everywhere! And by the way, the very concept of 'penitentiary' was invented in this country at the end of the 19th century. Europeans were somehow curious about this new word, all they new about was a 'prison', a place where criminals were put for punishment, period. And at this time, on the other side of the Atlantic, this new nation was experiment with a new approach: the 'penitentiary' would be a prison, where convicts are given a chance to repel, improve themselves (learn new skills, study, etc). Delegations of diplomates were sent to study the American penitentiary system and ended up as a model for improvements. My apologies if I awkwardly made it look like I believe the current insanity of the system is just a cultural outcome, I obviously don't. Historical incarceration stats seem to show it's a rather recent trend:
> Which doesn't actually get any less than it is in the US with harsher punishments. Neither are these societies being overrun by criminals.
They aren't overrun by criminals for sure. Now, truth be said, there's considerably less crime (especially petty) in the US than in western Europe. Harsher sentences are probably a factor to some extent, probably not as important as efficacy of law enforcement, or certain cultural traits (e.g: Americans aren't kidding with private property). I'd personally trade a bit more crime in exchange of fair sentences :)
It was interesting to see how much of the media was cheering the cruise missile strike in Syria. I think socially and economically WaPo is very liberal but for some reason most of the media loves almost anything to do with war.
I imagined a Principle Skinner writing this article "Are we out of touch with the wants and needs of the American people? No, it's the children (voters) who are wrong..."
The beauty of freedom of speech is that it disarms that fine china that begins to appear on every square foot of ground in society where free speech is under assault. Without it, people quickly become accustomed to tip-toeing around issues like the proverbial fine china, but just as quickly very dangerous ideas are left unopposed due to the climate of fear that is generated.
I always interpreted that resignation as "both sides are terrible, so I'm going to keep voting for my side". I wonder how many people really felt strong enough about politics to claim both sides are equally bad and then decided not to vote on that basis alone.
That attitude is true to a point, but surely people don't think that Gore would have invaded Iraq? That difference alone strikes me as so obvious and tangible, that there's no excuse for these kinds of false equivalences anymore.
He also would have kept us in Kyoto, which may have been even more consequential. I voted Nader in a blue state and regret it. Voting third party without IRV is naivety.
I wonder how many people really felt strong enough about politics to claim both sides are equally bad and then decided not to vote on that basis alone.
Since both sides are astonishingly bad, I usually end up voting third party in races where there is one.
The third parties are even worse than the two parties. The Libertarians ran Bob Barr, a Clinton House prosecutor and Gary Johnson who happily sent people to prison for drug crimes. Jill Stein supports Putin.
> and Gary Johnson who happily sent people to prison for drug crimes.
...what? Gary Johnson is himself a marijuana user who has long been am advocate of drug policy reform (not just for marijuana, but for other drugs as well).
When running for governor, Johnson campaigned on a platform of marijuana decriminalization and harm reduction for all other drugs. This was during the height of the Clinton-era anti-drug hysteria - you'd be hard pressed to find many other politicians who supported harm reduction at that point.
There are things to dislike about Johnson, but criticizing him on drug policy is really bizarre. He's been one of the strongest (if not the strongest) political advocate for abolishing the War on Drugs for over two decades - much more vocally so and for far longer than any other politician I can name offhand.
What did he actually do when he was twice elected as the Republican governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003. I give credit for what people do rather than what they say.
Also, he didn't campaign on legalization. He gave a speech about it in his second term. Did he parole any non-violent drug offenders? Did he use the powers of his office?
It's sensible to ask whether a specific 3rd-party vote had a chance of affecting the outcome in a positive way. E.g., one of the more effective arguments against the current Green party in the US is they don't seem to try very hard in local elections, where they might stand a chance; but they always run someone for president who stands no chance. If we have a hope of getting out of this, it's going to start on school boards and city councils. Prop up your 3rd parties there, but vote the lesser of two evils when it's the most effective thing to do.
Very much this. There are many de facto one party districts in the U.S. where a third party wouldn't run into the issue of being a spoiler. The Vermont Progressive Party only runs candidates like this. The result is that thought they're only active in Vermont, they have 11 seats in the Vermont state legislature. In contrast, the Libertarian Party and the Green Party are across in the entire U.S., and out of all 50 state legislatures they have a combined total of 2 seats (2 for the Libertarians, 0 for the Greens).
And it's this kind of impetus that creates voter apathy. If you insist on trying to shove square pegs into a round or triangular hole, you're just going to end up with vote tallies similar to the one you just saw with the national election.
As someone who didn't vote, no, I would not have changed my decision given the outcome, and this "lesser of two evils" justification crap is exactly why. Enjoy your shitty country.
third party voters can wind up choosing which of the two parties win. in 2016, they gave Trump the win, because they equated him and the Republicans with Hillary in terms of deleterious effects.
> third party voters can wind up choosing which of the two parties win. in 2016, they gave Trump the win, because they equated him and the Republicans with Hillary in terms of deleterious effects.
This is a common line used by leftists who are angry that Trump won and are looking for someone to blame. Third party voters make an easy target, and the left has long felt entitled to the support of third-party voters.
But this entitlement assumes that third party voters would otherwise have voted for Clinton, which is a pretty strong assumption that also doesn't really hold up against the polling data from late in the election. Johnson took more than half of the third-party vote, and had he not been running, most Johnson voters would either have voted Trump or not voted at all.
Trump didn't win because of the few voters who voted third party. He won because of the 63 million people who voted for him. If you want to blame someone for Trump's victory, blame them, not the 7 million who chose not to vote for Trump.
No, the Republican Party. Policy for the last decade has been that Democrats mustn't be allowed to win elections, and should they somehow manage to win elections, they mustn't be allowed to govern.
Of course, the Democrats have themselves totally acceded to this scheme.
Effectively, in a first past the post electoral system, any vote that isn't for the major party that most closely aligns with your views is a vote that supports the views least aligned with your preference.
I just re-read that article again, and don't really see your claims in in anywhere. I can kinda see how you might draw that conclusion, but I think it's an oversimplification and not really that accurate.
I do see some listed counterexamples to the "law", and also a note about occasional upsets where the parties get completely rearranged.
If both major parties suck, how do I ask for an upset? Is it by fuming quietly and voting for the lesser of the two evils, or by saying "no, fuck you both"? Or does the fact that any upset probably won't happen this election mean that it's part of "the long run" where per Keynes we're all dead, and so it doesn't actually matter?
Do the major parties just ignore any non-major-party vote, or do they analyze it to tweak their platforms for next time? (And, is this consistent over time and space? I'm hearing that it seems to be the case in the US now, but in the same breath I'm hearing that that's a recent localized disaster.)
The Wikipedia page is a tremendously short summary, and yes, doesn't go into depth about the implications of duverger's law.
I strongly suggest digging into the literature around it, which does bear out the thesis I states above.
If both parties suck equally and no party is more closely aligned to your preferences than another, I suggest you enter politics yourself. It's just made up of people not too different from yourself.
If both parties suck equally and no party is more closely aligned to your preferences than another, I suggest you enter politics yourself. It's just made up of people not too different from yourself.
I've actually thought about that a bit, and don't think I'd enjoy it enough to consistently put in the time needed to ever really get good at it.
Fairvote.org works on electoral reform issues that are meant to help with issues like this. I think that "the marketplace of ideas" in the US is too much of an oligopoly. Ideas like single transferable vote seem like realistic options for improving the situation. (I'm excited to see how thing go in Maine now that they've adopted some of these measures.)
I vote 3rd-party in every contest I can. At this point, I'd vote for a puppy dog, if it wasn't a D or an R. It makes my wife, family, and friends mad, but I will not waste my vote on the status quo. I'm voting to send a signal that I want other options.
I believe that if we can get to the point of just having a 3rd party on the platform for a presidential debate, we can open the door to other parties having a non-negligible effect on the election process. Of course, that's the Election Commision's fear as well: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09...
