>> (The other day, I made the mistake of clicking the "unsubscribe" link on
>> a Computer Weekly email. Sense then I've started getting burried with
>> emails from those morons!)
> 
> Blacklist 'em! Unless they're smart and use a migrating or false source...

I don't think I can actually do that.

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Stefan Viljoen wrote:
> Hmm yeah. But that's the US - out here they don't do that at all - they just
> send whatever you want, provided you have enough SMS credit left.

This is a commercial account I'm talking about. If you're just talking about 
sending an SMS from a cell phone over the air, they don't monitor it all 
that closely.

>> Before you can send an SMS via a shortcode (rather than thru a phone), you
>> have to tell them exactly what will be in each SMS, as well as what will
>> be on any web sites you run, down to the punctuation and spacing. If
>> someone sends you the word "STOP" and you send them any messages after,
>> your account turns off.
> 
> Interesting! Is this law or just a particular company's policy?

Every company's policy, but not AFAIK law. Some sort of association rules, 
since any carrier can SMS to any other carrier.

> I've always thought an advantage of living in the third world is the lack of
> regulation (or lack of knowledge, money, personnel, time, etc.) to enforce
> much of existing regulations. Doing certain stuff is easier, but then
> conversely you lack protection and safeties that first world citizens take
> for granted.

Yes, and the problem is that it's far easier to abuse than it is to do 
something good that isn't permitted under regulation. :-) Thus the reason we 
think of "third-world countries" as worse places to live in general.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Darren New wrote:

>> I've always thought an advantage of living in the third world is the lack
>> of regulation (or lack of knowledge, money, personnel, time, etc.) to
>> enforce much of existing regulations. Doing certain stuff is easier, but
>> then conversely you lack protection and safeties that first world
>> citizens take for granted.
> 
> Yes, and the problem is that it's far easier to abuse than it is to do
> something good that isn't permitted under regulation. :-) Thus the reason
> we think of "third-world countries" as worse places to live in general.
 
Well put, guess this is why so much spam comes from the Middle East and also
South America.

This makes me think of the house painter paradigm.

I talked to a Dutch visitor to South Africa a few years ago, and an amazing
tale he told was that how, in many municipalities or boroughs in Holland
you cannot paint your house the color you want. You first have to get a
permit (!) or certificate from the town council that says you're allowed to
paint your house whatever color. (And then you MUST use approved painters /
companies - you CANNOT do it yourself - against the law.)

Apparently there are certain colors that are "not allowed".

I wonder if this is true? Preposterous if it is.

That's just to illustrate - here, if you want to paint your house, you go
ahead and paint the bastard. No pussyfooting around with government
officials to get permission. On the flipside nobody to answer your 911 call
if that same house is on fire, and no fire engines or firemen to help put
the fire out.

-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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Stefan Viljoen wrote:
> I wonder if this is true? Preposterous if it is.

It's true of the neighborhood I live in, at least to the extent you have to 
get the color approved. But that's because nobody really wants to live next 
to a house painted with black and yellow stripes.  It's not a government 
body. It's essentially a corporation owned by all the homeowners in the 
neighborhood, chipping together to maintain the swimming pool and sweep the 
streets and stuff like that.

It hasn't turned out to be a problem in practice, altho of course everyone 
gets annoyed by the occasional petty official even at that level.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Darren New wrote:

> Stefan Viljoen wrote:
>> I wonder if this is true? Preposterous if it is.
> 
> It's true of the neighborhood I live in, at least to the extent you have
> to get the color approved. But that's because nobody really wants to live
> next
> to a house painted with black and yellow stripes.  It's not a government
> body. It's essentially a corporation owned by all the homeowners in the
> neighborhood, chipping together to maintain the swimming pool and sweep
> the streets and stuff like that.

Amazing! So in the US this is done too? I'm assuming though you live in some
kind of gated community, not on a public, municipal plot?
 

-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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Stefan Viljoen wrote:
> Amazing! So in the US this is done too? I'm assuming though you live in some
> kind of gated community, not on a public, municipal plot?

Correct.

The way it works is, the builder buys a big plot of land. (400+ houses here, 
for example.) They attach rules to a deed saying how the property that isn't 
private is managed - like, everyone pays the same amount per household for 
maintenance of the street lights, who counts votes to see who runs the 
business bits, how investment of payments are handled before they're spent, 
when the fees get to go up, etc. Then when you buy the house, it's part of 
the deed to the house that you follow those rules. This lets the builder 
spend several years building and selling the houses without the fear that by 
the time he finishes building the last 100 houses the first 100 houses 
hasn't turned the neighborhood into a slum.

The government passes laws saying what kinds of rules you're allowed to 
enforce. You're not allowed to prohibit satellite dishes, you can't control 
how many people live in any given house, votes and memberships have to be 
done in particular ways, stuff like that.

But we have the same sort of rules you get from any local government. You 
have to ask if you want to paint your house a color that's not already in 
the neighborhood. You have to have at least a certain number of trees out 
front. You don't get to park overnight in the street without reason X or Y 
or Z. You can't park commercial vehicles in the street unless they're 
working for you at the time (so, no parking your own wood chipper in the 
street). Holiday decorations have to come down within a couple weeks of the 
holiday being over. Stuff like that. All intended to make the neighborhood 
look nicer, all pretty easy to follow if you intended to follow them when 
you bought the property. You can do anything you want with the inside of the 
house.

Other neighborhoods have different, stricter and messier rules. But you know 
that when you buy the house, so don't buy the house if you don't like those 
rules.

Of course there's all kinds of other building codes you have to follow too, 
from the actual government(s). You can't put wiring in the walls whose 
insulation turns into toxic fumes during a fire. You have to have an 
electric socket that shuts off when you get electrocuted if you install one 
near a sink or tub. Stuff like that. Some municipalities also control how 
you can put up fences, whether you have to have a sidewalk, and things like 
that, altho I expect that's enforced much less because nobody in the 
government really cares unless a neighbor complains. (For example, my 
parents have been in their house 50+ years. Nobody cares if the fence they 
have is the right type or is too close to the border of their property.)

Welcome to civilization. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Darren New wrote:

> Stefan Viljoen wrote:
>> Amazing! So in the US this is done too? I'm assuming though you live in
>> some kind of gated community, not on a public, municipal plot?
> 
> Correct.
> 
> The way it works is, the builder buys a big plot of land. (400+ houses
.
.
.
> parents have been in their house 50+ years. Nobody cares if the fence they
> have is the right type or is too close to the border of their property.)
> 
> Welcome to civilization. :-)

Hehe... amazing. We've got something similar here, but it is only for
ultra-rich folks who got -really- huge wads of cash. And they mostly do it
for security. In South Africa, when you say "gated compound" it usually
means an expensive, high-security -compound- - one with 12 or even 14 foot
high walls, barbed wire at the top, seismic sensors in the ground, 24 hour
armed patrols, an armored, guarded gatepost, very bright security lights,
etc.

Some of these places even have specially extended walls that go up to 8 or
10 feet down into the ground to preclude people tunneling in. ("Dainfern"
in South Africa's Gauteng province is an example.) Not that it helps much,
people still get regularly murdered, raped, robbed and shot even inside
these "compounds".

As for the rest of what you say, it truly is civilization. Here it -used- to
be like you describe, but most of it has stopped, and people pretty much do
what they want. The laws are on most municipality's books, but they are not
enforced. 90% of the time is is simply a kind of "don't care" from
municipal officials, 10% of the time it is corruption or the officials are
threatened if they try to enforce the law.

Since the proportion of the population that live in typically African
shanty-towns is constantly growing, these kinds of by-law or ordinances
have become virtually forgotten / unknown - by definition a squatter camp
is not planned at all. Fires are famous in there - the smallest fire often
turns into a major disaster since no building codes are observed - shacks
are too close together, illegal electrical connections, wooden
construction... etc.
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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Stefan Viljoen wrote:
> In South Africa, when you say "gated compound" it usually
> means an expensive, high-security -compound- - one with 12 or even 14 foot
> high walls, barbed wire at the top, seismic sensors in the ground, 24 hour
> armed patrols, an armored, guarded gatepost, very bright security lights,
> etc.

Yeah. I've seen the car alarms that jet burning gasoline out the sides of 
the car, too. :-)

Here, we have a public walkway that goes thru the community, a city-owned 
sidewalk, basically, so we're not even allowed to keep out random strangers. 
When we didn't have a human watching the front entrance, we'd get random 
strangers coming in and using the swimming pool.  Personally, I wasn't too 
bothered by that, except they'd start abusing the property since they don't 
care, letting the kids take a dump in the pool, getting into fights with the 
people who are supposed to be there, etc.

But yeah, it's a real balancing act between effective government and abusive 
government, especially since it's so easy to go from ineffective government 
to corrupt worse-than-nothing government without passing thru the good 
government phase at all.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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Darren New wrote:

> Stefan Viljoen wrote:
>> In South Africa, when you say "gated compound" it usually
>> means an expensive, high-security -compound- - one with 12 or even 14
>> foot high walls, barbed wire at the top, seismic sensors in the ground,
>> 24 hour armed patrols, an armored, guarded gatepost, very bright security
>> lights, etc.
> 
> Yeah. I've seen the car alarms that jet burning gasoline out the sides of
> the car, too. :-)

Hahaha! Though somebody did build that, it is definitely not a commercial
success. As far as I know its more a gimmick than an actual product. Nobody
I know off has been reported to have purchased one or even installed it.
There is a HUGE liability to it - imagine if you gave some innocent
criminal, all loaded with his human rights and holiness, second or third
degree burns to his legs with one. You'd go to jail and have to pay HIM
compensation - nevermind that he wanted to hijack and then shoot you.
 
> Here, we have a public walkway that goes thru the community, a city-owned
> sidewalk, basically, so we're not even allowed to keep out random
> strangers. When we didn't have a human watching the front entrance, we'd
> get random

This is the argument the government here made when some people wanted
to "gate up" their neighbourhoods. The streets and sidewalks are owned by
the city, so if you do that you are breaking the criminals' constitutional
right to free movement. So they were unable to gate up. Those who could
afford it then moved into one of these "compounds" that are privately held.

> strangers coming in and using the swimming pool.  Personally, I wasn't too
> bothered by that, except they'd start abusing the property since they
> don't care, letting the kids take a dump in the pool, getting into fights
> with the people who are supposed to be there, etc.

This is what happened to most public parks here. The neigbourhood to whom it
belongs can't use it, and "normal" people can't dare to go there after dark
or even near dusk. You cannot at all allow your kid to go play there, even
during the day. The gated communities parks and facilities are another
story, being guarded 24/7 and with no public access.
 
> But yeah, it's a real balancing act between effective government and
> abusive government, especially since it's so easy to go from ineffective
> government to corrupt worse-than-nothing government without passing thru
> the good government phase at all.

Yup, I agree totally. The trick is balance. Like the case Clipka made about
the whole "armed safe society" thread. I do agree too that freedoms (like
weapons) need to be limited, but I disagree as to the level of limitation.
A state (and a community?) only works if public and private rights are in
balance. Same with an oppressive, effective, or abusive government. 

-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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Stefan Viljoen wrote:
> The streets and sidewalks are owned by the city, 

Here, some are, some aren't. When the builder builds houses, the city comes 
and says "you must pay to put in roads, then give them to us." Sometimes 
they don't. I don't know the pattern. The roads inside our gate belong to 
us, but the horse trail / walking path is public property that happens to be 
inside our gates. In practice, since the whole neighborhood isn't fenced in, 
you couldn't really keep anyone out who wanted to come in anyway. It's just 
a bit blatant to be climbing over the neighbor's fence carrying a golf bag.

> This is what happened to most public parks here. 

Here it wasn't dangerous. It just got crowded and abused. Trash (especially 
bottles) left behind, the grass being sufficiently beaten up it had to be 
replaced, etc. I haven't heard of anything more "dangerous" than someone 
breaking some light bulbs and such.

> Yup, I agree totally. The trick is balance. Like the case Clipka made about
> the whole "armed safe society" thread. I do agree too that freedoms (like
> weapons) need to be limited, but I disagree as to the level of limitation.

Well, we already had a low-government everyone-armed society here, and it 
was the highest level of murder in our history, AIUI. On the other hand, if 
you're worried about overthrowing the government, having guns locked up and 
unloaded in your house should take care of your revolutionary needs. It's 
not like the government is going to get overthrown in the length of time it 
takes to push a dozen shells into a shotgun. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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