First, you're comparing bullying with rape. Need I say more?
Second, not nearly everyone in the world gets physically abused, raped, or assaulted. I've never had the misfortune of experiencing any of those, and nor have most of the people I know.
But everyone experiences bullying in one form or another during their life, unless they die as a baby. Some cases are more severe. But it always hurts. Most of the time it's not intentional, and many times the perpetrator doesn't even realize he (or she) is doing it. And that's exactly why you can't outlaw it.
It's pretty much irrelevant what they're proposing, because they're trying to fix something that really doesn't need fixing. In fact, if anything their solution makes the problem worse.
The correct solution is to help kids deal with emotional and verbal abuse, not try to outlaw it. You're not doing anyone any favors by putting them in a protective shell until they hit a certain age, then releasing them into the wild to get hammered by all the nasty stuff Real Life has to offer all at once. Some parts of life suck. But you have to learn to deal.
If you look at what our government has done over the past decade, it seems as though most people don't give a shit and will put up with almost any infringement of their rights as long as they can post on Facebook.
I think I'm going to use that as my next status update.
I find the whole fixation on "cyberbulling" to be stupid and offensive.
No one's forcing these kids to commit suicide. No one is killing them. But more importantly, no one is helping them deal with the emotional/verbal abuse either.
Being emotionally/verbally abused or bullied is a part of life. It's GOING to happen. It sucks, but that's how it is. The correct solution is for adults to help kids learn how to deal with it, not find ways to make it illegal.
While I agree with your underlying sentiment ("accent neutralization" is definitely a can of worms best left closed) your arguments are bad and border on outright fallacious.
I hear the "it could be used against the white man as well" fairness excuse all the time. But, in practice, it isn't, and thus is illegally discriminatory.
That's been a myth for some time. The stereotypical "white man" who supposedly gets all the best treatment has been gone for decades. This is the only group that gets no special rights. This is the group that is generally used as the scapegoat for pretty much anything and everything anyone jolly well feels like.
And when that's *always* "White man of English descent", then that demonstrates a clear civil rights violation. If there was a push from a state to standardize on a Mexican accent, there's be so many complaints, but for standardizing on white-man speak and everyone gets on the "it's not discrimination" bandwagon.
We're talking about the USA here. Not Mexico. I don't know if you heard, but the official language of the USA is English. And it just so happens that the universally most-easily understand English accents are slight variations on accents most commonly spoken by Caucasians from the mid-western or western states. Don't get me wrong, I love other accents, but they are undeniably more difficult to understand.
That being said, I think "accent neutralization" is a horrible idea. It does have the potential for discrimination, as well as the potential to destroy culture. And we've done just fine so far without it.
With REAL property, once you've sold it you don't get to decide jack shit about it. That's the key difference between real property and Imaginary Property.
No one's saying you should be content with one sale on an app. That's the whole point of copyright. But you SHOULD be content with the sales you've generated after a few years (hell, in today's lightning-quick market you should probably be content with sales you've generated after a few MONTHS of releasing it). Instead though, that shitty app you made gets protected for 75 years after you're dead and gone.
So frankly, with your attitude about what you made, as far as I'm concerned you can just go right ahead and shove it right back up the ass you pooped it out of. And please, PLEASE let me know what crap you've released so I can avoid it like the plague.
The problem is to even have a shot at making something like this work right now, you'd have to have actual humans vet and whitelist websites, videos and everything else on a one-by-one basis. And even then, everything would have to be re-reviewed every so often to make sure nothing new slipped through the cracks on "clean" website. There's no way ad revenue alone would cover an undertaking like that. Whatever it ended up being would have to be subscription-based, which in the end isn't really all that different from current web filtering options available.
A child-safe corner of the internet sounds lovely, but until it's possible to fully automate the process and be 100% sure nothing "unsafe" slips through, it's probably not going to happen on any grand scale.
I also miss the "recently watched items" that used to be at the top of the Watch Instantly page. Was very useful for picking up where you left off, especially in TV shows.
Wish I could mod you up. So many people just don't realize what the reason for copyright is any more. It was never intended to generate monetary wealth. It was intended to generate cultural wealth by providing monetary incentive.
This tax is a per mile tax, not a per hour tax. Do you have any idea how many miles your average truck driver drives in a year, and how it compares to the dude driving past your house on his way to work every morning? Even if you DIDN'T tax according to weight, truck drivers on a per person basis still would get taxed far more than anyone else. Unless, of course, you exclude commercial vehicles which just doesn't make sense, because on any streets except strictly residential areas you get far more wear and tear from trucks than cars. Yes, even at a 106 cars per 1 truck ratio.
I tried over-the-road truck driving, and it already sucks so bad I quit before my actual on-the-job training was done. But hey, let's just go ahead and make it worse. Nothing like shitting on someone when they're already down.
One thing I'd put money on, if they implement this and don't exclude commercial vehicles owner-operators will be history almost overnight. It's already hard for them to compete with the big companies, for most this would be the final nail in the coffin.
And no matter how it ends up, if commercial vehicles get taxed you are going to see the prices of literally EVERYTHING go up overnight because everything in the US is at some point delivered by truck.
We may need more tax money, but this is not a good way to get it.
Well for starters we could quit spending large portions of the tax money that already exists on pork projects. But hey, let's not sanity get in the way of new taxes.
I'll freely admit to using ad hominem, but it wasn't fallacious.
You, on the other hand, have been doing nothing but trolling and of course won't admit to it, because trolls rarely do. I have no respect left for you. This conversation is over.
A smart cop is pretty unlikely. But he's not going to make your mistake of ignoring the safety clause.
Smart cop or not, you're still blatantly ignoring the fact that the advice you gave is to do something illegal.
You've mistaken the whole point of the manoeuvre. The point is to find a gap to move into the right hand lane by decreasing speed rather than increasing it.A manoeuvre that increases safety whilst you're performing it rather than decreases it.
Apparently you're too naive or ignorant to understand why that doesn't increase safety in this situation, or you're just trolling. I've already explained it once, not going to bother wasting my time explaining it again.
1. In a case like this, if anyone gets a ticket, it's the cop who makes the decision. Hopefully the cop is smarter than you. And regardless of the outcome, it doesn't change the fact that the person slowing down is still doing something illegal.
2. You're assuming that slowing down in this scenario is the safe choice, when odds are that couldn't be further from the truth. Ever heard of a thing called road rage? That's exactly what would be caused or increased by slowing down in this scenario. Not only will you not get the tailgater to back off, you'll just make him more likely to do something unsafe.
Furthermore, the OP who started this thread stated he increased speed by approximately 3mph to more quickly get out of the way of the tailgater. There are very few scenarios when an increase of 3mph in speed is not safer than running the risk of agitating another driver and causing them to behave irrationally. Someone who is truly tailgating is already demonstrating irrational driving behavior; the LAST thing you want to do is exacerbate the situation.
Fortunately the OP is a smarter and better driver than you and made the correct choice.
Gently slowing down is also not a legal option. Every state in the US has laws against impeding the flow of traffic, and slowing down in this scenario violates them all.
And not only that, I noticed one further huge problem.
In the photos where the yellow pickup truck is supposedly doing 76mph, you can see that the bus in the other lane has moved virtually the exact same distance as the pickup truck. So I guess the bus is also doing 76mph?
Your entire argument is based on your assumption (most likely incorrect) that the timestamp is added after the image is encoded. Along with this you are assuming that radar is more reliable than cameras and that a huge number of people were not only speeding, but in some cases doing better than 100% faster than posted speed, AND that they are all lying about it.
At the same time, you are ignoring multiple facts:
1. All of the example images we see show the vehicles having moved roughly the same distance from photo 1 to photo 2. This is consistent with the radar being wrong, and them all going roughly 35 mph. This is not consistent with the claimed speeds, which vary anywhere from 50mph to 76mph. Regardless of how accurate or inaccurate the timestamps on the photos are, it's still a reasonable assumption that the camera will always take the two photos at roughly the same intervals. Therefore, if the vehicles truly were traveling at such grossly different speeds, they should be in noticeably different positions in the second photo. They are not.
2. Radar has been proven to be fallible many times. I've seen it firsthand. I've gone through a construction zone on a highway that had the little radar bots showing you your speed, both at the beginning and the end. The first one showed my speed at significantly less than my speedometer. The second showed my speed at significantly more than my speedometer (I maintained the same speed, but the difference in speed readings was over 10mph.) One or the other could have been correct, but certainly not both. As a result, the simplest explanation here is that the radar is making mistakes.
There's still limited time to actually read those books, which is generally the real barrier (do I think this book will be rewarding enough in the time that I need to read it?)
That barrier goes away when the price is low enough. People like free or cheap stuff. Most people will take virtually anything they think they might have a use for if it's free (provided they don't perceive it as nothing more than junk or trash.) Heck, if they still have it in 5 years and still haven't used it, they can throw it away so it stops taking up space. After all, they got it for free, right?
The same thought process is basically what happens when you price something digital at 99 cents these days. It's low enough that people perceive it as costing basically nothing, or in other words "practically free". So they'll buy it on a whim, whether they think they'll have time to read it or not. After all, they have room for thousands of ebooks on their reader, and 5 years down the road, if they haven't read it and need the space, they'll delete it without a second thought.
So yes, it's entirely likely that most people will buy more ebooks than they'll ever have time to read, if they're priced low enough and convenient enough to find and get.
Slashdot Mirror
First, you're comparing bullying with rape. Need I say more?
Second, not nearly everyone in the world gets physically abused, raped, or assaulted. I've never had the misfortune of experiencing any of those, and nor have most of the people I know.
But everyone experiences bullying in one form or another during their life, unless they die as a baby. Some cases are more severe. But it always hurts. Most of the time it's not intentional, and many times the perpetrator doesn't even realize he (or she) is doing it. And that's exactly why you can't outlaw it.
Couldn't agree more.
It's pretty much irrelevant what they're proposing, because they're trying to fix something that really doesn't need fixing. In fact, if anything their solution makes the problem worse.
The correct solution is to help kids deal with emotional and verbal abuse, not try to outlaw it. You're not doing anyone any favors by putting them in a protective shell until they hit a certain age, then releasing them into the wild to get hammered by all the nasty stuff Real Life has to offer all at once. Some parts of life suck. But you have to learn to deal.
If you look at what our government has done over the past decade, it seems as though most people don't give a shit and will put up with almost any infringement of their rights as long as they can post on Facebook.
I think I'm going to use that as my next status update.
Does it really matter what party they affiliate with? They're politicians.
I find the whole fixation on "cyberbulling" to be stupid and offensive.
No one's forcing these kids to commit suicide. No one is killing them. But more importantly, no one is helping them deal with the emotional/verbal abuse either.
Being emotionally/verbally abused or bullied is a part of life. It's GOING to happen. It sucks, but that's how it is. The correct solution is for adults to help kids learn how to deal with it, not find ways to make it illegal.
While I agree with your underlying sentiment ("accent neutralization" is definitely a can of worms best left closed) your arguments are bad and border on outright fallacious.
I hear the "it could be used against the white man as well" fairness excuse all the time. But, in practice, it isn't, and thus is illegally discriminatory.
That's been a myth for some time. The stereotypical "white man" who supposedly gets all the best treatment has been gone for decades. This is the only group that gets no special rights. This is the group that is generally used as the scapegoat for pretty much anything and everything anyone jolly well feels like.
And when that's *always* "White man of English descent", then that demonstrates a clear civil rights violation. If there was a push from a state to standardize on a Mexican accent, there's be so many complaints, but for standardizing on white-man speak and everyone gets on the "it's not discrimination" bandwagon.
We're talking about the USA here. Not Mexico. I don't know if you heard, but the official language of the USA is English. And it just so happens that the universally most-easily understand English accents are slight variations on accents most commonly spoken by Caucasians from the mid-western or western states. Don't get me wrong, I love other accents, but they are undeniably more difficult to understand.
That being said, I think "accent neutralization" is a horrible idea. It does have the potential for discrimination, as well as the potential to destroy culture. And we've done just fine so far without it.
Why is it then that we don't hear about crap like this from places like Japan, where internet speeds and population density are both much higher?
With REAL property, once you've sold it you don't get to decide jack shit about it. That's the key difference between real property and Imaginary Property.
No one's saying you should be content with one sale on an app. That's the whole point of copyright. But you SHOULD be content with the sales you've generated after a few years (hell, in today's lightning-quick market you should probably be content with sales you've generated after a few MONTHS of releasing it). Instead though, that shitty app you made gets protected for 75 years after you're dead and gone.
So frankly, with your attitude about what you made, as far as I'm concerned you can just go right ahead and shove it right back up the ass you pooped it out of. And please, PLEASE let me know what crap you've released so I can avoid it like the plague.
The problem is to even have a shot at making something like this work right now, you'd have to have actual humans vet and whitelist websites, videos and everything else on a one-by-one basis. And even then, everything would have to be re-reviewed every so often to make sure nothing new slipped through the cracks on "clean" website. There's no way ad revenue alone would cover an undertaking like that. Whatever it ended up being would have to be subscription-based, which in the end isn't really all that different from current web filtering options available.
A child-safe corner of the internet sounds lovely, but until it's possible to fully automate the process and be 100% sure nothing "unsafe" slips through, it's probably not going to happen on any grand scale.
I also miss the "recently watched items" that used to be at the top of the Watch Instantly page. Was very useful for picking up where you left off, especially in TV shows.
I'm disappointed.
I'd be a lot more in favor of the fifteen years being all they get. It doesn't take 2 years to print and 20 years to distribute stuff any more.
Wish I could mod you up. So many people just don't realize what the reason for copyright is any more. It was never intended to generate monetary wealth. It was intended to generate cultural wealth by providing monetary incentive.
This tax is a per mile tax, not a per hour tax. Do you have any idea how many miles your average truck driver drives in a year, and how it compares to the dude driving past your house on his way to work every morning? Even if you DIDN'T tax according to weight, truck drivers on a per person basis still would get taxed far more than anyone else. Unless, of course, you exclude commercial vehicles which just doesn't make sense, because on any streets except strictly residential areas you get far more wear and tear from trucks than cars. Yes, even at a 106 cars per 1 truck ratio.
I tried over-the-road truck driving, and it already sucks so bad I quit before my actual on-the-job training was done. But hey, let's just go ahead and make it worse. Nothing like shitting on someone when they're already down.
One thing I'd put money on, if they implement this and don't exclude commercial vehicles owner-operators will be history almost overnight. It's already hard for them to compete with the big companies, for most this would be the final nail in the coffin.
And no matter how it ends up, if commercial vehicles get taxed you are going to see the prices of literally EVERYTHING go up overnight because everything in the US is at some point delivered by truck.
We may need more tax money, but this is not a good way to get it.
Well for starters we could quit spending large portions of the tax money that already exists on pork projects. But hey, let's not sanity get in the way of new taxes.
This is exactly why the tax is a horrible idea.
But sure, let's go ahead and put some truck drivers out of business and drive up the delivery cost of... well, pretty much everything.
Or you can be stupid and not tax commercial vehicles, even though as pointed out they easily cause by far the greatest wear and tear on our roads.
It just doesn't matter how you slice it; a mileage tax is a dumb idea.
I'll freely admit to using ad hominem, but it wasn't fallacious.
You, on the other hand, have been doing nothing but trolling and of course won't admit to it, because trolls rarely do. I have no respect left for you. This conversation is over.
So you're just trolling then. Thanks for making it obvious.
A smart cop is pretty unlikely. But he's not going to make your mistake of ignoring the safety clause.
Smart cop or not, you're still blatantly ignoring the fact that the advice you gave is to do something illegal.
You've mistaken the whole point of the manoeuvre. The point is to find a gap to move into the right hand lane by decreasing speed rather than increasing it.A manoeuvre that increases safety whilst you're performing it rather than decreases it.
Apparently you're too naive or ignorant to understand why that doesn't increase safety in this situation, or you're just trolling. I've already explained it once, not going to bother wasting my time explaining it again.
Bad assumptions.
1. In a case like this, if anyone gets a ticket, it's the cop who makes the decision. Hopefully the cop is smarter than you. And regardless of the outcome, it doesn't change the fact that the person slowing down is still doing something illegal.
2. You're assuming that slowing down in this scenario is the safe choice, when odds are that couldn't be further from the truth. Ever heard of a thing called road rage? That's exactly what would be caused or increased by slowing down in this scenario. Not only will you not get the tailgater to back off, you'll just make him more likely to do something unsafe.
Furthermore, the OP who started this thread stated he increased speed by approximately 3mph to more quickly get out of the way of the tailgater. There are very few scenarios when an increase of 3mph in speed is not safer than running the risk of agitating another driver and causing them to behave irrationally. Someone who is truly tailgating is already demonstrating irrational driving behavior; the LAST thing you want to do is exacerbate the situation.
Fortunately the OP is a smarter and better driver than you and made the correct choice.
Gently slowing down is also not a legal option. Every state in the US has laws against impeding the flow of traffic, and slowing down in this scenario violates them all.
http://www.trafficviolationlawfirms.com/resources/traffic-tickets/moving-violations/impeding-traffic-fines-traffic-points.htm
http://definitions.uslegal.com/i/impeding-traffic/
And not only that, I noticed one further huge problem.
In the photos where the yellow pickup truck is supposedly doing 76mph, you can see that the bus in the other lane has moved virtually the exact same distance as the pickup truck. So I guess the bus is also doing 76mph?
Your entire argument is based on your assumption (most likely incorrect) that the timestamp is added after the image is encoded. Along with this you are assuming that radar is more reliable than cameras and that a huge number of people were not only speeding, but in some cases doing better than 100% faster than posted speed, AND that they are all lying about it.
At the same time, you are ignoring multiple facts:
1. All of the example images we see show the vehicles having moved roughly the same distance from photo 1 to photo 2. This is consistent with the radar being wrong, and them all going roughly 35 mph. This is not consistent with the claimed speeds, which vary anywhere from 50mph to 76mph. Regardless of how accurate or inaccurate the timestamps on the photos are, it's still a reasonable assumption that the camera will always take the two photos at roughly the same intervals. Therefore, if the vehicles truly were traveling at such grossly different speeds, they should be in noticeably different positions in the second photo. They are not.
2. Radar has been proven to be fallible many times. I've seen it firsthand. I've gone through a construction zone on a highway that had the little radar bots showing you your speed, both at the beginning and the end. The first one showed my speed at significantly less than my speedometer. The second showed my speed at significantly more than my speedometer (I maintained the same speed, but the difference in speed readings was over 10mph.) One or the other could have been correct, but certainly not both. As a result, the simplest explanation here is that the radar is making mistakes.
There's still limited time to actually read those books, which is generally the real barrier (do I think this book will be rewarding enough in the time that I need to read it?)
That barrier goes away when the price is low enough. People like free or cheap stuff. Most people will take virtually anything they think they might have a use for if it's free (provided they don't perceive it as nothing more than junk or trash.) Heck, if they still have it in 5 years and still haven't used it, they can throw it away so it stops taking up space. After all, they got it for free, right?
The same thought process is basically what happens when you price something digital at 99 cents these days. It's low enough that people perceive it as costing basically nothing, or in other words "practically free". So they'll buy it on a whim, whether they think they'll have time to read it or not. After all, they have room for thousands of ebooks on their reader, and 5 years down the road, if they haven't read it and need the space, they'll delete it without a second thought.
So yes, it's entirely likely that most people will buy more ebooks than they'll ever have time to read, if they're priced low enough and convenient enough to find and get.
Doesn't baseball also have a lot fewer injuries than football? That would also make it a lot easier to predict.