Slashdot Mirror
Cringely On Civil Disobedience
Sauron23 writes "Robert Cringely over at PBS has his usual weekly Pulpit out. This weeks it's a follow up to last weeks discussion of one of the enforcers of the DMCA, BayTSP. He clarifies some of the issues surrounding a planned bust in October for P2P users sharing movies and makes perhaps an unusual request for civil disobediance from P2P users. I don't know what 10 million pirated copies of "Debbie does Dallas" would be worth either Bob. Probably more than the courts would want to handle. Worth the read." Some of the stronger parts of the column, IMHO, is the commentary on the e-mails people sent in.
Had you read the article you would have seen that a real-world protest is exactly what he is suggesting.
You are to violate the DMCA and immediately leave towards the closest police station, and demand a jury trial.
A 0.0134 second google search revealed this:
http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/a-slmatr.html
1 .htmm
The impact of speed limits on highway speed:
http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html
The impact of speed limits on safety:
http://www.hwysafety.com/hwy_montana_200
http://www.nj.npri.org/nj99/03/fedagency.ht
Summary of findings by the US Dep't of Transportation study:
* Based on the free-flow speed data collected for a 24-h period at the experimental and comparison sites in 22 States, posted speed limits were set, on the average, at the 45th percentile speed or below the average speed of traffic
* Speed limits were posted, on average, between 5 and 16 mi/h (8 and 26 km/h) below the 85th percentile speed.
* Lowering speed limits by 5, 10, 15, or 20 mi/h (8, 16, 24, or 26 km/h) at the study sites had a minor effect on vehicle speeds. Posting lower speed limits does not decrease motorist's speeds.
* Raising speed limits by 5, 10, or 15 mi/h (8, 16, or 25 km/h) at the rural and urban sites had a minor effect on vehicle speeds. In other words, an increase in the posted speed limit did not create a corresponding increase in vehicle speeds.
* The average change in any of the percentile speeds at the experimental sites was less than 1.5 mi/h (2.4 m/h), regardless of whether the speed limit was raised or lowered.
* Where speed limits were lowered, an examination of speed distribution indicated the slowest drivers (1st percentile) increased their speed approximately 1 mi/h (1/6 km/h). There were no changes on the high-speed drivers (99th percentile)
* At sites where speed limits were raised, there was an increase of less than 1.5 mi/h (2.4 km/h) for drivers traveling at and below the 75th percentile speed. When the posted limits were raised by 10 and 15 mi/h (16 and 24 km/h), there was a small decrease in the 99th percentile speed.
* Raising speed limits in the region of the 85th percentile speed has an extremely beneficial effect on drivers complying with the posted speed limits.
* Lowering speed limits in the 33rd percentile speed (the average percentile that speed were posted in this study) provides a noncompliance rate of approximately 67 percent.
* After speed limits were altered at the experimental sites, less than one-half of the drivers complied with the new posed limits.
* Only minor changes in vehicles following as headways less than 2s were found at the experimental sites.
* Accidents at the 58 experimental sites where speed limits were lowered increased by 5.4 percent. The level of confidence of this estimate is 44 percent. The 95 percent confidence limits for this estimate ranges from a reduction in accidents of 11 percent to an increase of 26 percent.
* Accidents at the 41 experimental sites where speed limits were raised decreased by 6.7 percent. The level of confidence of this estimate in 59 percent. The 95 percent confidence limits for this estimate ranges from a reduction in accidents of 21 percent to an increase of 10 percent.
* Lowering speed limits more than 5 mi/h (8 km/h) below the 85th percentile speed of traffic did not reduce accidents.
* The indirect effects of speed limit changes on a sample of contiguous and adjacent roadways was found to be very small and insignificant.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK