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Phone repair
by Russell Coker 24 May '16

24 May '16

What's a good place in the central city area to get a phone repaired? The glass on my Note3 has cracked. I just need new glass the screen itself seems ok. -- Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 3 with K-9 Mail.

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Phone battery.
by Dan062 24 May '16

24 May '16

Hi all, does a phone battery die suddenly with no warning or is it a more gradual process with the battery holding less and less charge after each recharge? Since last 2-3 days, my phone battery is running flat after 3-4 hrs. Problem is I also did a os upgrade (Android) a few days ago! ... Why I think its the battery and not the os upgrade, its because it seems to be getting worse - (just now its loss about 15% in about 20 mins and its just idle) Thanks, Daniel. -- dan062 <dan062(a)yahoo.com.au>

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Compose Melbourne Functional Programming Conference in August -- Launch Party, Thursday 19 May
by Les Kitchen (LUV) 18 May '16

18 May '16

Just in case some of you are interested in functional programming (newbies or veterans): There's a group of us in Melbourne organizing a conference in functional programming, to run 29th and 30th of August. To start things off, we're holding a launch party Thursday evening, 19 May 2016, 6pm. Details follow. Sorry for short notice. — Smiles, Les. ================================================================ Compose :: Melbourne is a new functional programming conference focused on developing the community and bringing functional programming to a wider audience. It is a 2-day event being held in Melbourne, Australia on the 29th and 30th of August 2016. The first day features a single track of presentations followed by a second day of workshops and an unconference. It is the new sister-conference of the NY based Compose Conference. http://www.composeconference.org/ We're throwing a launch-party at LOOP Bar, so come along and have a drink and chat to a bunch of FPeeps and find out what exactly we've been scheming about! Feel free to register for the party at Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/compose-conference-melbourne-cfparty-ticket… Or join the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1698824013707374/ Or subscribe to the mailing list: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/composemel More details coming soon! ================================================================

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Re: [luv-talk] Who owns Android ?
by Russell Coker 17 May '16

17 May '16

On Tue, 17 May 2016 06:20:23 PM Erik Christiansen via luv-main wrote: > > Do you own a house if a corporation can pollute the air and give you a > > high probability of cancer if you choose to keep living there? > > It is difficult to gain FOSS-type freedom for our residences, but > utility independence is possible. I'm in the last throes of design of > my tree-change strawbale solar-powered off-grid tank-water home. As no > utilities are provided at the site, there are no related charges¹. OK, > there's still rates, but four down (electricity, water, gas², telephone) > is a good start. > > Admittedly, I'm quietly praying to Odin, Thor, Freja, and Sif, that the > wireless internet out there will improve from basically adequate to good. > > The biggest freedom, though, is no-one else on my 3 sq. km. - just > kangas, wombats, and possums. The kangas stop and hang about if you talk > to them right. You still don't have freedom from pollution. While Lock The Gate is getting some traction they are far from preventing mining companies from destroying farmland. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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Re: [luv-talk] Who owns Android ?
by Russell Coker 17 May '16

17 May '16

On Sat, 14 May 2016 10:41:28 PM David Zuccaro via luv-main wrote: > On 12/05/16 11:54, Russell Coker wrote: > > Do you own a house if banks can destroy your neighborhood by robo-signing > > forclosure documents that the residents can't afford to legally oppose? > > Libertarianism opposes fraudulent practices. Hopefully down the track AI > will make legal procedures a lot cheaper. Libertarianism opposes any measure to stop fraud. The idea that Libertarianism could work once we invent AI is a new one. > > Do you own a house if corporations own the roads, water, and electricity > > supplies and can cut off your entire neighborhood if it's not profitable > > or if there are mostly non-white people living there (IE Flint)? > > The Flint water crisis was actually caused by corrupt *government* > officials. I doubt private company subject to the rigors of the free > market would have engaged in such dubious practices. Why not? > > Do you own a house if a corporation can pollute the air and give you a > > high probability of cancer if you choose to keep living there? > > It's true that the environment is the Achilles heel of libertarianism. Well that and the starving kids to death thing. > I've come up with a possible solution the air pollution that does sound > far fetched I agree but may go some way to addressing this problem. So > basically the atmosphere is treated as an asset and all people living on > the earth are given an equal share in the atmosphere as an asset. That's not an original idea. > Industries that pollute must basically pay compensation to the > shareholders. This is very much like a carbon tax except that it is more > market based and would ensure polluting is dis-incentivised. But you need a world government to enforce it. > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates > > > > If you look at the comparison of countries by tax rates Australia doesn't > > seem that high. With a couple of exceptions it seems that the countries > > with higher tax rates than Australia are places you probably wouldn't > > mind living (Belgium, Finland, Sweden are all good places to live). The > > countries with the lowest tax rates include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, > > and UAE - places where I don't even want to change flights. The > > middle-eastern countries with low tax are also fairly positive towards > > slavery, no-one who likes liberty wants anything to do with that. > > I have an old school friend that lives in Kuwait -- he seems to live the > life of Riley regularly flying to Europe for the weekend due the the > middle east's centralised location. You mean he chooses to be rich rather than free? > > Libertarianism is all about liberty for the super-rich and serfdom for > > people like us. > > I'd rather be poor and free than rich and overburdened by regulations. > Additionally regulations seem to be being used by corporations to > entrench their position in the market rather than to give the consumer > benefits. Of course this stifles economic mobility. If that was the case then corporations would be lobbying for more regulation! While some companies lobby for regulation to prevent competition most of the lobbying is for less regulation. That's because most of the regulation protects people from corporations rather than the other way around. > > Libertarianism is about helping the powerful subjugate the weak. That's > > why mistreatment of children is so important to influential libertarians > > such as Rothbard and Rewart. > > > > I believe that society should protect the weak. We need a legal system > > to protect children from sexual abuse etc, a welfare system to prevent > > them from starving etc. The Libertarian approach of legalising child > > porn, ceasing welfare, and essentially forcing children into sex work is > > unacceptable to me. > > This is a ridiculous strawman. What is ridiculous is when people argue for things they know little about. http://content.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1808384,00.html From the above article about Libertarian leader Mary J. Ruwart: # Ruwart wrote. "When we outlaw child pornography, the prices paid for child # performers rise, increasing the incentives for parents to use children # against their will." She's not just arguing for child porn, but she's arguing for so much child porn that the prices go down. That's a huge amount of child porn! https://mises.org/library/children-and-rights From the above article by Murray N. Rothbard who personally invented the political system referred to nowadays as Libertarianism: # But the parent should have the legal right not to feed the child, i.e., to # allow it to die.2 The law, therefore, may not properly compel the parent to # feed a child or to keep it alive. Libertarianism was FOUNDED on the idea of permitting parents to starve their children to death. Many people who call themselves Libertarians don't support this because Libertarianism is too horrid for Libertarians. But the fact is that Libertarianism was based in philosophy. In philosophy if you reach a conclusion that is disgusting (like permitting people to starve children to death) you don't say "let's do everything logically about from the logical end result", instead you revisit the assumptions that you used to base your philosophy. This leads to the conclusion that unrestricted personal liberty is not acceptable unless starving children is also acceptable. More from the above article: # Parents would be able to sell their trustee-rights in children to anyone who # wished to buy them at any mutually agreed price. Slavery as Libertarian philosophy! Seriously you could buy "trustee rights" to children of poor people and then tell the kids that you won't feed them unless they work. Libertarianism was too awful for Ayn Rand. Need I say more? -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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Re: [luv-talk] Regarding Libertarians: Fwd: Suicide – Update on "Barnaby Joyce: dairy farmers like my family are being destroyed - please step in urgently"
by Rohan McLeod 16 May '16

16 May '16

Russell Coker via luv-talk wrote: > https://www.change.org/p/barnaby-joyce-dairy-farmers-like-my-family-are-bei… > destroyed-please-step-in- > urgently/u/16583897?tk=TYRO2k3SiGZUBRu4hwtFwXXkn357kIh6RcXFDSxVXgw&utm_source=petition_update&utm_medium=email I sympathise with the dairy farmers; but would need to see what is being proposed to remedy their plight; before signing the partition. On the subject of Libertarianism At the Existentenialist Society (which is a lecture forum not a club); we get left and right-wing anarchist attendee's and speakers. Frankly, right-wing anarchists seem little different from Libertarians and the kind of utopia they advocate; suggests a very strong connection between the Libertarian ideology and a Chicago style , ' Rational-Free-market ' economic one. My objection to the latter is more epistemological than political; as I believe a science of economics; is possible (ie consisting of objectively falsifiable hypothesis only.); with all questions of ends relegated back to philosophy and the ballot box; where such questions properly belong. The Rational-Free-market proposition that: " a free-market (ie without legislated price controls) will produce 'optimimum' social-ends when least regulated" is I contend "not even wrong" ( to quote a remark from Wolfgang Pauli ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong -firstly because 'optimimum' social-ends' is not even potentially empirically definable -secondly because consumer demand does not constitute any kind of plebliscite of a society's wants; being merely a record of what was chosen from what was on sale. Which is why 'rational producer/ retailers' pay for market-research ! I contend this central economic ideology traceable back to Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand"; is a pathetic , irresponsible, fatalistic economic delusion.! ie a free-market needs to be constrained to whatever economic ends 'the ballot box decrees ! regards Rohan McLeod

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Re: [luv-talk] Who owns Android ?
by Russell Coker 14 May '16

14 May '16

On Sun, 15 May 2016 04:14:25 AM Ben McGinnes via luv-main wrote: > On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 11:54:41AM +1000, Russell Coker via luv-main wrote: > > Libertarianism is all about liberty for the super-rich and serfdom > > for people like us. > > You're thinking of the American brand of the Libertarian Right, not > all forms of libertarianism. I'm talking about Murray Rothbard's brand of Libertarianism. He boasted about his success in stealing the word from the left and he was correct in that. > For instance my lot, Pirate Party > Australia, our policies and principles are pretty much consistent with > the Libertarian Left and I think you'll find plenty in there that you > agree with (given one of your other examples I suggest you start with > the tax policy, negative tax and the basic income policy). There is no such thing as Libertarian Left. Rothbard was totally successful in stealing the word. Words have to have meanings if we are to communicate. Rothbard has defined the meaning of "Libertarian". > > Libertarianism is about helping the powerful subjugate the weak. > > Not even the Libertarian Right go that far if they're genuine and > stick to their principles. They don't claim to do that, but every time they find a way of supporting the powerful. > People seriously trying that and claiming > to be libertarian aren't actually libertarian, they're fascists > without an army to back it up. That's exactly what Libertarianism is all about. But instead of a state army they want to have a corporate army. Not that it matters as there is never going to be a functional Libertarian state. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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IEEE Vic: Wed 27 18:00- Bayesian Decision Making in the Real World
by Rodney Brown 25 Apr '16

25 Apr '16

*Bayesian Decision Making in the Real World* */Presented By : Dr. Kevin Korb Date : Wednesday April 27, 2016 Time : 6:00pm - 7:30pm Location : /*/Room 80.03.021, Swanston Academic Bldg, 80/445 Swanston St, MelbourneVIC3000 (Map <http://ieeevic.us4.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=ff449fc8ee84b59411cf34a0d…>)/ *------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*----- */Abstract:/* Bayesian networks, extended to Bayesian decision networks (BDNs, aka influence diagrams), support decision making under uncertainty in an ideal (normative) way. That means they can provide guidance to people prepared to learn how to build and test them and then meticulously analyse a decision problem and tailor a BDN to it. In other words, BDNs are used by almost no one for real decision making. In this talk I'll outline what's involved in all of that in case you really want to do it (or just understand what's involved). But for the vast majority of people there's a better way: pay (directly or indirectly) someone to build a GUI front-end that will hide the details from the user. For any particular decision problem there will be invariants that can be pre-built into a BDN. All that a user/customer need do is enter the user's specific context: general background info plus the needs and preferences that specific user has. The BDN can then assess the different choices available and their user-specific value. I will compare and contrast this with what's most commonly available, CHOICE-like comparative tables of costs and benefits of each alternative, which puts the entire burden on the customer, leading to highly suboptimal decisions. Bayesian decision making is the wave of the future, so we may as well catch it now. */Speaker: / Dr Kevin Korb*is a Reader in the Clayton School of Information Technology, Monash University and co-founder and Director of Bayesian Intelligence Pty Ltd. BI delivers training and Bayesian network modeling solutions to business and government. Korb received his PhD in philosophy of science from Indiana University in 1992. His research interests include Bayesian philosophy of science, causal discovery algorithms, Bayesian networks, evolutionary artificial life simulation, and the epistemology of simulation. He is the author of "Bayesian Artificial Intelligence" (CRC, 2010) and "Evolving Ethics" (Imprint Academic, 2010), co-founder of the journal Psyche, the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness and the Australasian Bayesian Network Modelling Society (ABNMS) and Chair of theIEEEComputational Intelligence Society inVictoria. *This is a free event open to the public. for catering purposes, please register at:* *http://bayesian-decision-making-in-the-real-world.eventbrite.com.au/ <http://ieeevic.us4.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ff449fc8ee84b59411cf34a0d&…>* *======================================================================================* *Kind Regards Annick Boghossian* *The Computer Society Chapter ofIEEEVictorian Section Chair*

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Fw: new message
by luv-beginners＠luv.asn.au 24 Apr '16

24 Apr '16

Hello! You have a new message, please read <http://www.yattermatters.com/bond.php?wpt> luv-beginners(a)luv.asn.au

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California voter idiot-trap (was: petitions)
by Rick Moen 21 Apr '16

21 Apr '16

There's been an idiot-trap for California voters, in operation for, oh, call it a half-century. The _Los Angeles Times_ just ran a story checking on the 3% of registered California voters currently falling for that trap, highlighting some now-embarrassed celebrities who did the dumb thing. http://static.latimes.com/american-independent-party-california-voters/ It has to do with the concept of 'voting independent', and a minor and extremely far-right party whose name is 'American Independent Party' (hereinafter, 'AIP'). Ah, you're way ahead of me, right? Almost every California voter since 1968 who ever registered AIP, did so in the mistaken belief he/she was registering 'independent'. I've known about this trap for a long time. Here's the way I explained it in 2008 to the Ex-VA Linux Systems mailing list: A few years ago, while researching the "County Political Parties" entries in http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/household.html, I uncovered something that might amuse: Ever wonder about why the "American Independent Party" (ex-George Wallace) remains on all California partisan-office ballots, even though there's been no such party organisation in the state for 30+ years? It's because a Bircher outfit called "Constitution Party" (primarily in Colorado, Montana, and western Pennsylvania) kept it on the ballots (as a sort of brand name) to function as an _idiot trap_. That is, it's listed solely in order to attract votes from citizens attempting to vote "independent" but unclear on the concept of how that actually works. Said voters see the word "independent" in close association with nationalism, mark that entry, and never realise they've voted for a party -- and Constitution Party gets their vote. In this way, Constitution Party remained (albeit under a different name) permanently on the California ballot and in the public's eye, even though they had nothing like the 1% registration statewide that's required to be _added_ to the ballot: State law requires that a returning party merely never fall below 1/15% of state registered voters in any subsequent general election, and accidental votes from morons helped Constitution Party stick around. I say "remained", because, in 2006, Constitution Party split because candidates in several states cautiously allowed as how abortions _might_ be justified in cases of rape, incest, and abortions performed to save the life of the mother, leading to a big fight and numerous states' parties disaffiliating because the central organisation isn't wacko enough. The California branch is one of the many that left, and re-dubbed itself "America's Independent Party". _It_ now operates the ex-Wallace American Independent Party "franchise" within California. (Repeal the income tax, and protect our Precious Bodily Fluids!) http://www.selfgovernment.us/ http://www.ballot-access.org/2008/08/26/keyes-wins-california-lawsuit-on-pr… (Post-2008, 'America's Independent Party', the tiny reactionary faction controlling the AIP brand in California, appears to have renamed itself a second time to 'America's Party'.) The actual American Independent Party was a one-shot party formed to back southern racist George C. Wallace's presidential campaign where Wallace primarily opposed racial integration, favoured reducing the size and influence of the US Federal government, and pledged to either win the Vietnam War in 90 days or withdraw all troops. The party fell apart at the end of the 1968 campaign (that elected Republican candidate Richard Nixon), but AIP remained an entry on the California ballot because of the rules I describe -- an artifact of voter statistics. I mentioned long ago in the prior thread that my state of California recognises six political parties: o American Independent Party (the idiot bait), http://www.aipca.org/ o Democratic Party, http://www.cadem.org/ o Green Party, http://www.cagreens.org/ o Libertarian Party, http://ca.lp.org/ o Peace and Freedom Party, http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/ o Republican Party, https://www.cagop.org/ Minor parties in general are discussed briefly at the end of this post. What is 'independent', in this context? It means the voter has declined to provide any party affiliation to the county registrar of voters. California officials refer to such a voter as a 'no party preference' voter (formerly 'decline-to-state' or 'non-partisan'). Basically, when registering to vote, you are asked 'Do you wish to state a party preference?' You check either 'yes' or 'no'. Under 'yes', there are six choices of party as shown in the LA Times graphic -- one of which is AIP. Thus, AIP is an idiot trap. And 3% of the California's registered voters fall for it. Why would an intelligent California voter _truly_ register independent (i.e., no party preference)? I cannot for the life of me figure out a single compelling reason, as doing so has no functional advantage. As an interesting quirk, three of California's parties permit no-party-preference voters to vote their ballots, and three do not. For details: http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2016-April/008422.html Given the USA's severe (and little-recognised) Duvenger's Law problem, at any given time over the centuries there have almost always been just _two_ dominant political parties that win almost all elections -- except on some interesting occasions where 'party realignments' occurred, and sometimes entire parties fragmented and dissolved. o Federalist Party (1792): lost strength when its leaders died around 1800, never regained power. Discredited and dissolved in 1815 because of a fatal political faux pas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartford_Convention o Democratic-Republican Party (1799): Thomas Jefferson's party, rival to the Federalists, and opposed to strong central government power. Splintered in 1824 over a highly dysfunctional Presidential election where the Electoral College deadlocked and Congress had to pick a President and VP (widely condemned as a 'corrupt bargain'). One fragment (that backed former general and charismatic populist Andrew Jackson) became the Democratic Party (1832), which survives, much changed, to this day. The other became the Whig Party (1833). o Whig Party (1833): Received diverse collections of Andrew Jackson opponents. Self-destructed over the slavery issue in 1856. The anti-slavery northern faction split off as the Republican Party[1] (launched in 1854). The pro-slavery southern faction briefly split off (1845) as a nationalist/nativist party under a series of now-obscure names and is now commonly known as the Know Nothing Party, which dissolved during the American Civil War (1861-1865) over slavery. I assume former members in the South mostly became southern Democrats, an odd regionalism that persisted until the late 20th Century. The American Civil War left two surviving major political parties, the same ones that exist today (Democratic and Republican) -- though the tenets of both have changed _very_ radically since 1865. The legacy of slavery did not go away, of course, and a major realignment _without_ party dissolution occurred after President Lyndon B. Johnson (Democrat, and from Texas) coaxed Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1865, enacting long-overdue major protections of voting rights, and mostly having the effect of [re-]enfranchising black voters in the South.[2] According to legend, President Johnson said to observers when he signed the bill that it would cost the Democratic Party the South for a generation. If anything, he underestimated. Southern Democrats slowly trickled to the Republican Party after '65, and moved there en-masse under Ronald Reagan (1980s). Part of the reason the partisan divide has become so intense and angry is a growing (and IMO correct) perception that the Republican Party has become (starting in the Reagan era) the party of racism and xenophobia, starting with its absorption of most Southern Democrats. But the greater part is, of course, the Republican Party veering ideologically away from the mainstream more generally under the influence of Tea Party radicals, while Democratic Party politics has changed very little since, say, around 1970, remaining fractious and diverse.[3] Meanwhile, there _have_ been a number of interesting _minor_ political parties. Although kept from winning significant numbers of political office races by the distortive effect of first-past-the-post voting (Duvenger's Law), they have had a vital role in promoting ideas later adopted by the major parties. For example, several democratic-socialist parties, sometimes regional, sometimes national, promoted the idea of nationally organised old-age, survivors', and disability insurance for at least 20-30 years before President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law in 1935. Pretty much every significant social welfare, social insurance, or political reform idea traces back to one or more of these now-obscure minor parties. Mr. Bernie Sanders, whom I intend to vote for in the California Democratic Party primary election on June 7th (and who will lose nomination to Hillary Clinton, later this summer), describes himself as a 'democratic socialist', which is basically just branding and owes to some of his fights with the Democratic Party establishment earlier in his career. Notably, though, the term 'socialist' is political poison in many parts of the USA, where low-information voters cannot quite get their minds around the reality of mixed economies, and cannot disambiguate 'socialist' from 'Communist'. Sad. [1] Its nickname 'Grand Old Party' or GOP originated in a bit of passing publicity in 1875, even though the USA's Democratic Party is, in fact, 22 years older. [2] It's not for nothing that several black Americans I know, who were born around 1965-6, were named 'Lyndon' by their parents. [3] Thus, early 20th Century entertainment figure and political humourist Will Rogers's famous quip: 'I am not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Rogers

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