Wiki Governance :East Coast Code

Image via WikipediaWhy shouldn't policymakers design the computer code and device parameters to more closely hew to the desired legal outcome? Because the desired legal outcome is created by committee and the law is not obliged to work only to make people feel like they've done something. Bad laws are passed constantly and by and large if the law is too ludicrous or unrealistic people merely won't enforce it or will enforce it selectively and pretty much forget over time. Bad design is eternal, the physical world does not simply ignore foolish or impossible design decisions consequence happens and usually in a devastating manner. An engine or device that clings to what is legal will often not do what is practical, especially as what is legal can be fluid throughout the design process. We currently have cars that will not start until a breathalyzer is used on the steering column and that is all well and good. What if a similar device was made slightly earlier, say when in some counties women were not allowed to drive without a man present, or devices that keep a car from exceeding the speed limit under any circumstance. These may be silly but are unjust and unsafe. One of the founding ideals of the law is the idea that sometimes the law is wrong and human judgment should be used. Technology cannot apply such judgment. nor in many cases should it try. In the Time of Gilbert and Sullivan some unscrupulous people transmitted their works by telephone and telegraph across the Atlantic to America so that actors could perform bootleg operettas. If the policy makers of the time decided that such illegalities were important and had a hand in designing the phones, would we even have he clear signals we take for granted today? Think of what a printing press that values the local ordinance for obscenity or property over clarity of copy. Would we even have modern faith as we understand it if the Church policy makers chained the press to their requirements instead of those of the people? Technological growth is unfortunately amoral, sometimes our reach exceeds our grasp and the capacities science gives us are ones we are not mature enough to use well, but far more often this increase in capacity is the spark that topples existing injustice simply by making control of the new capacities too expensive to police. I don't want my equipment designed by people who care about what's legal I want it designed by people who care about making good equipment. I have my own moral faculties.

Wiki Government: Patent Leader

Image via WikipediaFundamental problem of current patent law, too many things are patented and people have been offering mutually exclusive patents to multiple people for the same device or concept. The suggestion of the book is that some sort of automagic search system compares patents to see who has what. Sounds like a good idea and steps in this direction are being taken so perhaps all is well. There is a problem, natural language processing. In order for patents to be acessible to the common man and indeed comprehensible at all patents in regular everyday lanuage must eb considered allowable. However, language is fluid and can describe a phenomenon or device in hundred's of ways. A Binary Metallic Decision Making Device is just a complicated way of saying, flip a coin. The taxonomy of ideas that must be involved for a truly comprehensive and comprehensible patent system may well be impossible. Not to say it isn't worth trying but any time parsing a truly stupendous amount (terabytes if you include pictures, text etc.) of data in next to no time is the easy part of your task you have quite the difficult task. I am not certain the optimism of the book is warranted nor am I sure that technology is the appropriate solution. Perhaps a more precise measure of language in encoding the patents in the first place would be worthwhile. Natural language patents could be accepted but then a summary or abstract version would be encoded by a patent worker and then entered into the system. Unfortunately this solution would be wickedly expensive and time consuming but it is hard to imagine a system which isn't.

Signs of the times

http://www.flickr.com/photos/arenamontanus/sets/72157594323393196/with/264116790/
So I've been listening to "No Children" by The Mountain Goats. I haven't any links to them as all of the links I have found give popups. but they're a worthwhile band. I think My brain is melting out of my ears. but now there's a rituals section on the vampire.echoesofempires.org I am trying to get the wraith stuff out on time but if any of you readers have anything you want to see in a wraith supplement you let me know.

Courts (wall of text) part 1 of 5

Image by // solidether via Flickr

The Courts.
The four changeling courts give protection and power to changelings. The true Fey understand the world in a very specific way. In the primal chaos, things are either always the same and immune to the change of their environment or once they change they are changed. A dog may turn into a lamppost and that lamppost into a lemur but it will likely never turn into a dog again, there are so many other shapes it could be. The idea of Cyclical change is as bizarre and alien to the Fey as time travel paradox is to humans, Some of they Fey may talk about it but they don't get it and definitely wouldn't know how to go about making one. The courts may not like each other and may fight over succession or the order of passage of power but all of them know deeply that whatever power they have they must regularly pass to their rivals in the other courts lest they all fall. The Wheel of the seasons may turn forward or backward or out of order but it must turn.
Each court has a virtue associated with it. Winter is Temperance, Summer exemplifies Valor, Spring drinks deeply of Compassion and Fall draws their strength from their Conviction. In order learn the Fleeting contracts of a court you must be a member of a court of have a court's favor of 4 or higher. Every rank can bestow a number of points of favor equal to their rank. To become a member of a court one must have 5 points of favor from that court. To rise in rank in a court one is either promoted by someone of Rank 4 or higher or earns their place by making pacts with the spirits of the seasons themselves. This is a difficult and dangerous process.
Ephemeral court members have no rank in the court, not even a rank of 0, they can be ephemeral members of several courts and their ephemeral contracts will continue to function for as long as they have a single point of court favor in the appropriate court. Ephemeral powers return when favor returns.
Eternal court members have access to all ephemeral contracts and access to eternal contracts equal to their level of rank. To be ennobled of a rank the character must have that court's governing virtue equal to the rank they are gaining. not all of those with virtues at such levels gain rank, and once a character gains a rank their virtues might fall due to trauma they will not lose rank for this drop in virtue although they are encouraged to maintain a virtue equal to their rank.
In Delaware in specific, the Court of Diamond has decreed that those that Host a Freehold are a rank higher while they host. Meaning whomever leads a Corroborative has their rank increased by one until the next Corroborre. This increase of rank can only take place if the changeling to be increased has an appropriate virtue at the appropriate level.
All courts must obey the right of rescue, No matter what court another belongs to, they are bound by oath to rescue a member of a court from kidnapping from anything be if Fey, mortal Police, or whatever else may kidnap a changeling >cough< Lasombra >cough<. There are seven other laws, unique to each court that all members must swear to. Their oaths are not binding with glamour but they may as they see fit take each court's code as a Code of Honour as per the Vampire Codes of Honor with the virtue protection and willpower that comes with said codes.
Each rank has its own titles for each court as follows:
summer winter spring fall
0 - citizen, apprentice, lantern, Acolyte
1 - knight, journeyman, Midwife, deacon
2 - baron, Master, Nurse, brother
3 - count, Doctor, Doctor, father
4 - Duke, Enlightened, Cadecus, Grandfather
5 - Prince, Sophont, Angel, Patriarch

As a note - if one takes these as codes of honor, their eight rules are the rule of rescue and these other seven codes. With a code of honor, the changeling gets 2 willpower per night to spend in the defense of their code. violating their code provokes a challenge vs the virtue of their court or else lose a point of clarity.