Thought and Freedom

Something that has annoyed me in the past is when I generate a new class, Eclipse puts the @author tag in the comments with my machine username. It ends up looking like this:


/*
* @author ID123
*/

Which is really not that helpful in some contexts. In the systems I work on, its just not simple to find out who that is. Since these are comments and not database entries, I’d rather see the name of the author.

The easiest way to fix this is to modify the default @author in Eclipse settings. To do so, do the following:

1. Window ->Preferences
2. Expand Java-> Code Style
3. Click Code Templates
4. On the right, expand Comments and click on Types
5. Click the Edit button on the right and change ${user} to your name (or you can even enter your name after the user variable if the user ID is valuable to you).

Now you can have this in your code instead:

/*
* @author ID123 - Terry Pearson
*/

Thank you Aaron Saray for the tip!

Have you ever wanted to send a message to someone, but you did not want it to be stored in permanent form in email? There is now a website that is addressing just such an issue.

OneTimeSecret.com allows you to type a message and send a URL to someone. Once the URL is displayed once, the message is gone forever.

Some good uses for this would be the sending of passwords or other sensative information (as suggested by killerstartups.com .

I double checked that the website runs on https only (which it does), so that makes it safer for sending sensative data across the wire.

There has been a lot of discussion about the dangers in banning books. The idea is that people who want to do evil, need to cut off information flows.

Yes, there could be very bad books. These books are full of bad ideas and should not be taken seriously. However, placing a complete ban on such items only makes it that much more likely to ban the good items as well.

We embrace freedom because it allows us to self-filter. If we have potentially all the information at our disposal, we can make the best decision possible. The theory behind preventing book bans is that restricting access to information only makes us more dependent on our censors and weaker as a society.

Please read Doug Newman’s article on SOPA (Stop online piracy act) and how this piece of legislation is congress’s attempt at a virtual book ban on the internet.

http://foodforthethinkers.com/2012/01/05/will-there-be-a-banned-web-sites-week/

And, if you love your freedom, tell congress that this is a horrible idea. Don’t be fooled by the name, this is an all out assault on the free flow of information. This law is exactly the thing a dictatorship would use to “protect” its people from “bad” information.

I recently ran into a problem transferring GoDaddy hosting from one account in their system to another. It appears that domains must be unique across the entire shared GoDaddy system.  I decided to write a quick article on how to prevent downtime with such a transfer.

So for future reference, it may be beneficial to do this if you need to transfer from one GoDaddy hosting account to another:

1.  Create a new temporary subdomain A record pointing to the new hosting server (i.e. my.domain.com).
2.  Setup hosting on new hosting server for the temporary subdomain.
3.  Setup an apache site on another non-godaddy server for the main domain.
4.  On the non-godaddy server, setup a temporary redirect from the main domain to the temporary subdomain (www.domain.com->my.domain.com).
5.  Modify the DNS record of the main domain to point the non-godaddy server.
6.  After propogation, cancel the original hosting service (or change it to another domain on the account).
7.  After cancellation is finalized (48 hours), modify the main A record to point to the new GoDaddy hosting account.

It is unfortunate the GoDaddy has to enforce uniqueness in hosting names because it forces a massive outage on those wanting to transfer within GoDaddy. As long as your instance is on a different server, it should not matter too much (I know there are technical issues, but it is something that could be fixed with a different setup behind the scenes.

It’s hard to pinpoint one law passed in the past couple years that one could argue is “the worst law ever.” However, the National Defence Authorization Act may be on the top of the list. The act was passed overwhelmingly by Republicans and Democrats. It effectively removes accountability and rights proactively to an accused.  This bill was made for abuse and our only hope is a presidential veto at this point.

I received the following email forwarded to my by a former classmate (Becky Lee). Please take action. If your senator voted for this freedom killing act, let them know that you are mad about it as well!

I normally refuse to send batch emails however in the case of the United States’ eroding civil liberties I feel compelled to elicit help from anyone that will take the time to read. We are, as most of you know, at a critical point in U.S. history.

The control of corporations over the Government has strangled the power out of our hands and into theirs. We no longer are viewed as an important factor in elections, law making, or protection. The Government has willingly sacrificed the welfare of millions to the banks and as such have firmly sided themselves with the money pools of this country.

Votes no longer weigh as much a dollars in elections and your rights and liberties are inconsequential in comparison to the well being and progression of major corporations. It is now apparent that the Corporate machine and Government are working hand in hand to subdue the spirit of freedom in this country.

The passing of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 has effectively declared martial law in the United States. This Act closely mirrors the law compelled by Hitler after the Reichstag fire in Germany on 27 February 1933. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire ) Allowing Military forces to detain US citizens under the suspicion of Terrorism. This  act in effect allows the Government to use the Military as a police force within our own boarders.

The suspicion of terrorism is drawn from within their own ranks effectively making anyone a potential Terrorist, Remember how Germany outed all the communists before Hitler consolidated power then using the military declared the Jews a threat to Germany.

We are witnessing the beginning of a fascist regime. This is not a joke, This is not conspiracy, this is not going to go away.

Read:

Forbes Article on the National Defense Authorization Act

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/12/05/the-national-defense-authorization-act-is-the-greatest-threat-to-civil-liberties-americans-face/

Watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrXyLrTRXso
We are losing.
Sign the petition, End the madness.
Whitehouse.gov


https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/veto-national-defense-authorization-act-2012-several-provisions-bill-pose-threat-civil-liberties/GLfhBn6D?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
Sincerely,
Philip D. Lee

Today, I have the special opportunity to introduce, guest blogger, Dwight Johnson. He is a fascinatingly brilliant blogger and author. He recently wrote a book entitled “If Not Democracy” (Kindle Edition found here for $2.99
) that I would highly recommend you check out on Amazon.

Let me start by thanking Terry for this opportunity to guest post on his fantastic site.

Terry asked me to do a guest post after he found himself at my website, GovernmentByContract.com.

I have been a libertarian for many years, and have been working to develop a means to bring real freedom to our world. The specific means I have developed is thru the creation of ideologically-based voluntary organizations I call “cantons”. The inspiration for the name comes from the cantons of Switzerland, but unlike those cantons, the cantons I speak about are non-territorial. In this way they are more like political parties.

The difference between political parties and cantons is that the purpose of political parties is to get people of a certain ideological stripe elected to office. The purpose of cantons, on the other hand, is to decentralize the power of government. It does this by a contract between the canton and its members. That contract, good for one year, gives the canton the right to take possession of the taxes taken by a particular governing body. Here, for example, is what my contract with a federal level paleo-libertarian canton might say: “I, Dwight Johnson, authorize the Paleo-libertarian Canton of America to receive from the Internal Revenue Service all the taxes paid to that agency by me during the tax year of 2011″.

Now, if my canton goes to the IRS with just this one contract, not much will happen. (Do I have a gift for understatement?) But what would happen if some large proportion of the 90 million taxpayers in America signed such a contract with some number of cantons? If we believe the words of the Declaration of Independence about “governments … deriving there just powers from the consent of the governed”, we certainly could take control of our taxes.

What happens then? The canton then spends those taxes according to the principles and values of its members. There would be numerous cantons, each reflecting the myriad of principles and values that so clearly exist in the population. Each canton, receiving the taxes of its members, would spend those taxes accordingly on the services provided by the various departments of government. By this means we would be able to right-size government at every level, by making sure that the people who pay the taxes determine what the taxes pay for. Any canton that fails to act according to the principles and values of its members will find its members fleeing to other cantons. With such an incentive, I expect cantons to be fairly responsive to their members.

I owe a debt of gratitude to the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) people. It was in thinking about their causes that I was able to better understand the role of cantons. I agree with OWS in this: it is clear that there has been a concentration of wealth in the hands of the few. The wealthy are growing more wealthy in a disproportionate way, the middle class is disappearing, and the poor grow daily in number and desperation. This concentration of wealth coincides with a parallel concentration in power that has also been steadily growing thru the years. Cantons are a way to redistribute power back to the people. It is my firm belief that the redistribution of power will bring with it a redistribution of wealth. Where now the wealthy few, such as the bankers and many global businesses, use their armies of lobbyists to create regulations and laws that work to their advantage (this is called “crony capitalism”), when power is redistributed to the people thru cantons, the lobbyists will lose much of their power, and along with them the bankers and others who have been successful at redirecting the taxes we pay into their own pockets.

There is a lot of talk of big government versus small government, but who is to say what size government is the right size? If those who pay taxes can determine what the taxes pay for thru cantons, only those services that governments propose to supply will find funding if the service is considered necessary by enough cantons. Everything else will be starved to death by a lack of interest and funding. This is what I call “right-sizing” government.

I am a great fan of Ron Paul. I was very excited when he entered the presidential race back in 2007, and have contributed to his campaigns ever since. But we cannot depend on one man, however great, to ensure our freedom. Even if we have the great joy of witnessing the inauguration of President Ron Paul, we still need to find a way to redistribute power in government at every level: federal, state, county, and municipal. If anyone has a better way of doing it other than thru cantons, let me know.

For anyone living in South Jersey, join my meetup group, South Jersey Canton Formation Group, at meetup.com.

If you want to find out more about cantons, please come visit my blog, GovernmentByContract.com. You can also find my book on Amazon, called “If Not Democracy”.

The Republican Mother has posted a good video summarizing the dangers of the protect IP act. Contact your congress person today and tell them to get their hands out of the internet.

Take action right now. Go to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and send a pre-written email directly from their site.

An story from Bill, over at “the zen parent,” sums up something that many people do not realize about Christmas…

…We were giving Christmas presents to my two-year-old niece. On Christmas Day, we presented her with a doll and baby carriage. And she was thrilled. She was all smiles and hugging the doll as if it were the only thing that mattered in the whole world. If that had been the only thing she’d gotten that Christmas, she would have been perfectly content.

But it was just the beginning. Gift after gift was laid at her feet. Tearing through the wrapping paper of each successive present, I could see the joy in her face give way to a kind of numbness. Where the doll and carriage had been special, now nothing was, just a growing pile of things and very little time to feel anything special about any of them.

The image haunts me still…

There are a lot of good parents out there. Most are well meaning when they give their kids a lot of toys for Christmas (or birthdays). But, I think we need to look at the amount of gifts we give our children.

We all want our kids to be happy, but sometimes happiness is not “more.” Sometimes, happiness happens by a trip to the sledding hill, a snow fort, or maybe just a big hug from a parent. Happiness comes from fellowship, not from a pile of toys or other items.

Jessica and I will be getting our daughters Christmas presents this year, but we will try to keep it in perspective. After all, this season is not about how much you can get.  This is a season of friendship, socializing, and most of all, of a chance to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Let’s have a wonderful Christmas season and focus on the things that matter most!

Public schools are beginning to venture into the domain of self-produced digital curriculum. Through the advancement of technology, we are able to mass distribute content without the need for a third party publisher that charges high rates for their work.

I applaud school districts who have pursued this option. They save hundreds of thousands by building a reusable curriculum and rejecting the textbook industry model.

One benefit that has not yet been discussed is that schools could provide these books in the public domain. In fact, if you follow the federal president, it would be required that these books be made public domain. Since the creation of these books would be on the taxpayers’ dime, it would be reasonable to assume that members of the community could access the learning materials as well.

This could offer tremendous benefits to the community.

1. Help parents understand their child’s classes- Let’s say a parent was helping their child with a math assignment, but they themselves struggled with math as a child. The parent could brush up on their skills before the child began the class, thereby allowing the parent to support the child in the best way possible.
2. Review – How many times have you read a cookbook recipe, made the food once, then forgot how to make the recipe next time around? It happens to all of us. If we allow children to go back and review the subjects they once studied, they would have the opportunity to replenish ideas that had been forgotten.
3. Auxiliary Education – Suppose a retired couple decides to go traveling, but they know little about the geography of the region. They could view the public school geography curriculum on the area to learn more about it. Furthermore, they could see who authored it, maybe contact the teachers, and possibly present more information on the region to the children in the classroom when they return.
4. Homeschooling – Allowing open curriculum removes one of the major sources of contention between homeschooling families and public school systems. By allowing anyone to access the online curriculum, the homeschool families can reduce the cost of purchasing curriculum when so desired.
5. Community Expertise – Residents may have valuable additions from personal expertise on certain subjects that they could contribute to the school district. This would increase the value of the curriculum over time.
6. Working ahead – Believe it or not, many kids enjoy learning. Allowing communities to openly access the digital curriculum allows motivated students to work ahead and/or cover subjects that they would not have had time to take due to limited availability of classes or conflicts in scheduling.
7. Collaboration with other school districts – Educators could save substantial costs by collaborating across school districts. If school x has two thirds of what school y needs, they could just add on to the good efforts of school x’s curriculum. The favor could be reciprocated when school y needs something. In the end, everyone benefits.

During the past several years, there have been dozens of new “text message” laws around the country. These laws range from limiting texting while driving to preventing phone use while driving.

While I think that many people cannot handle texting while driving (Surprisingly, some actually do pretty good at it0), I think we are over-complicating things. The real issue here is car wrecks caused by distracted drivers.

In fact, some people get distracted for other reasons (i.e. radio, coffee, etc.), drive badly, and crash their cars. Is the distracted coffee drinker any less guilty than the texter who crashed his vehicle? Ironically, these two individuals will be treated differently under the law even though they both causes equal harm to others.

Laws should punish harm done and not the arbitrary method used to commit them. For example, if a person is murdered, the punishment should be the same whether they were shot with a gun or pushed off a cliff. In either case, the person’s life was equally valuable and so should the punishment.

Laws should protect others from force or harm and not focus on “methods.” By doing so, we restore focus on the value of life and liberty and remove focus from methods and tools that could be used for good or for evil.

Thank you to Nigel Lyons for posting this.