Librarian here. Why pay for access when your public library is already paying for the good stuff? Knowledge will always be free at your local public library. Most US libraries have access to paywalled news and scientific articles through Academic Search Premier, Gale and other databases. Our county library system offers free access to Zinio's magazine service, which is pretty sweet. Local (community) colleges usually have reference services available for county residents, and are often willing to mail you a journal article. Using these services take some effort (writing an e-mail or using your library card) so they aren't ideal for instantaneous gratification. Check out http://www.publiclibraries.com... to find your local library.
As far as where to get your news, start with an RSS reader (Feedly, Netvibes, gReader) and get the rss feeds for:
The twitter feed of your local newspapers Google News Your favorite TV news station (CNN, Al Jazeera, MSNBC, etc) memeorandum for politics A few international broadcasters of countries that you are interested in (VOA, BBC, RFI, RFERL, etc)
I'd start with New York City's public library system. Find a librarian to help you get access to the various electronic databases, which includes Academic Search Premier and a bunch of others. If you need a specific journal article, print out the abstract or citation that you found on line, and bring it with you to the library. You can often find similar and/or more up to date articles for free with the help of the librarian. If access to the article isn't available through the public library, you might be able to get METRO access to a university library or private special collection: http://metro.org/referral-cards/. A librarian could also try to ILL you a copy of the article, but it takes some time.
Public university libraries are almost always open to the public...that's SUNY and CUNY. If you are lucky, you can get a daily guest password for the computer databases, but YMMV. I'd call around to a number of public universities and ask about guest policies.
I love Feedly. But it is NOT a straight RSS Reader. It personalizes and selects those stories that it thinks you want to read. It also has some pretty neat discovery features. That said, I've used Feedly for weeks, without realizing that I had missed stories from some of my favorite sites. I like to switch between Netvibes and Feedly, honestly.
>I guess the next step is writing a novel using a hexeditor?
I attempt (almost always unsuccessfully) to write a novel for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo.org) every November.
Of course, the perfect text editor to use for NaNoWriMo: Nano!
I find it lightweight, fully featured and easy to use. It can easily call up the "spell" spellchecker - but it doesn't give suggestions. It also doesn't give a word count.
So when I need more advanced features, I fire up Open Office. http://www.afterthedeadline.com/ has a great grammar checker as well.
I also keep an encrypted diary on Linux using Lifeograph.
I'm very happy that the opensource movement has plenty of free tools for writers!
Aside from being in the same room, these programmers were barely working together....
I've worked in some crowded office conditions, but absolutely nothing like what is pictured in this article. There are 10 people crowded into this 1 person office space. I could see six people fitting into this space humanely - eg without violating the fire code / without personality conflicts / without bumping into each other while working.
I guess this is why they only hired skinny people for this internship!
However, good clear writing can be judged. The study points out that the best wikipedia entries are done by editors who are GOOD writers who know how to a) contribute new sentences (write a first draft), b) re-write sentences (re-drafting), c) add references (source checking), d) make grammatical and other edits (final drafting).
The formula for writing good content has not changed. It's just the proportions (collaboration) that have made the process more efficient and provided more content which are in need of lots of editing!
This anti-stab knife is horribly flawed. Sure, it is difficult to stab with it, but it looks unsafe. By unsafe, I mean, difficult to sharpen, difficult to chop and cut veggies and meat with. This will lead to injury. Loss of fingers. Etc. This sort of dangerous product is the sort of thing that should be kept off shelves, IMHO.
Is detecting a bullet once fired even practical? A typical rifle bullet travels between approximately 700 m/s to 1000m/s.
Assuming a 1000 m/s bullet, like a 50BMG or 338LM, if a sniper is positioned 2km away, it will take 2 seconds for the round to reach the target. 1km, 1 second.
Problem is that most sniper engagements are not at extreme long ranges. Most occur between 275-550 meters. That means a quarter to a half a second.
That is not enough time to get out of the way of a typical bullet, even if your reaction is instantaneous.
I agree that private individuals and corporations have a right to restrict what they want. But they have to play by the rules that we all agreed upon when we joined the site.
When you sign up, you have to agree to an acceptable use policy which bans "obscene, pornographic or sexually explicit" images.
So how exactly is a woman breast feeding obscene? It is not, of course, and I dare say that the Facebook owners ever intended for these photos to be banned.
But the way that Facebook censors interpret the rule is that is if there is any nipple showing, it gets deleted.
Clearly, management needs to rewrite the censors rule book to allow an exception for breast-feeding.
This has almost nothing to do with the first amendment, and more to do with a woman's "right to privacy" -- ie. the right to do what she wants with her body without prudes or religious nuts making it illegal.
I had a K8T800 motherboard for an old AMD 3200+ processor. It was considered state of the art and cutting edge and all that...how the mighty have fallen.
First off, the 11th Amendment was ratified in 1795 after the Supreme Court ruled that Article 3, Section 2, of the Constitution abrogated the States' sovereign immunity and granted federal courts the affirmative power to hear disputes between private citizens and States.
The 11th Amendment states that "The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State."
Sovereign immunity isn't perfectly in line with democratic values and norms, which is why it has numerous exceptions...since our elected representatives can waive claims of immunity by appropriate legislation, like the Federal Tort Claims Act.
I don't think anyone has a problem with the police using this technology to catch car thieves, finding (abandoned) stolen vehicles, and finding people with outstanding warrants.
What people do have a problem with is using this technology to ticket people with expired license/registration/insurance. I know people who have been pulled over for expired licenses (one week past expired) in one town, let go to drive home/finish errands, and then pulled over immediately in the next town and ticketed. Its a scam...you can't drive without a license, but if it expires, how are you supposed to get to DMV without breaking the law if you have no friends or relatives or public transportation to take you there?
Game rules are not copyrightable. The idea for a game is not protected by copyright. The same is true of the name or title given to the game and of the method or methods for playing it....Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in the development, merchandising, or playing of a game. See http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html
Profplump is correct. Depending on what State you live in, a landlord may be able to force you to remove a political sign from your property.
The First Amendment only provides that the government may not abridge any citizen's right to freedom of speech...BUT it does not cover interactions between private citizens. Thus, a landlord and tenant can sign a lease that forbids the tenant to display a political or commercial sign on the property without the approval of the landlord.
However, the apartment or house that you rent is not only the landlord's property, it is your property as well, and you have rights that go along with that property that are not alterable by contract. You have the right to use the property as your home. The landlord shouldn't be able to tell you what you can do in your home. Obviously, you shouldn't be able to knock down the house, or put in a new wall, but in a residential lease, why should the landlord prohibit putting up wall hangings...or tell you how to raise your children?
People do not have any bargaining power when it comes to signing residential leases usually and provisions like this are overlooked. Besides, people have a reasonable expectation to do home-like things to their rental property, like putting up pictures and hanging curtains.
How does this relate to the internet? The internet is a quasi-public space. Users have an expectation that they have the right to say what they think, as long as what they are saying or doing isn't illegal. So when a private company comes along and says that you are violating our TOS then people get pissed...especially because our private money helped lay down the infrastructure for the internet.
Its interesting how the download numbers per country reflect that countries economic development. Chad has only 2 downloads, and Central African Republic has 3, while South Africa has 18,000. North Korea has 0, while South Korea has over 44,000.
...not businesses. The whole idea of municipal Wi-fi is that everyone can have it, profit or no profit...tragedy of the commons and all....and since Earthlink abandoned their effort to provide municipal Wi-Fi access because they couldn't lure enough paying customers...it just goes to show that non-public corporations do a lousy job providing public services. The internet is akin to a utility, and should be regulated in the publics best interest, not some investors bottom line.
The reason why the evidence isn't allowed to be used at trial is that the punishment is supposed to be "prophylactic" in order to prevent law enforcement from failing to secure a warrant (except in very narrowly defined extreme cases).
The 4th Amendment is a right of an individual against the government. The wording is strong. This right "shall not be violated". The right guarantees that only reasonable searches and seizures will be allowed. Moreover, highly specific warrants are required that can only be issued by a judge when there is probable cause.
So, how could this individual right be vindicated against the government if the evidence is not excluded? Firing the cop isn't the solution...he just acted unreasonably, not criminally. Cops aren't lawyers. Dropping the charges in their entirety would be an injustice. Excluding evidence is really the best way to prevent injustice from occurring.
If we as a society dislike this technicality, lets get rid of it and overturn the 4th Amendment...or tweak it to make it say what we mean.
Actually, what you describe (violent act intending to cause intimidation) is not necessarily terrorism. It could be the legitimate use of force, the result of an armed robbery, or a simple assault.
This is why I developed:
Ubuwalker's 6 pronged guide to determining if a person or entity is a terrorist:
1) Did they intend to cause mass terror? [This is an objective test; just because something is scary, doesn't make it terrorism.]
2) Did they use violence or threat of violence? [This rules out non-violent protesters, but includes activities related to violence, like arson]
3) Did they deliberately (and routinely) target non-combatant civilians? [Actions that target military personnel aren't terrorism. An entity which is involved in isolated and infrequent acts which meet criteria 1-6 are more characteristic of war crimes, rather than terrorism, as they might be revenge attacks or guerrilla attacks of opportunity, or of splinter cells, or accidental engagements of civilian target, or engagements of legitimate military targets where civilian combatant are killed, and thus would not be indicative of a systematic policy of engaging in terrorism]
4) Are they a non-governmental organization? [otherwise the action is a war-crime or crime against humanity or piracy or the actor is a State Sponsor of Terrorism]
5) Did they have a political goal? [This rules out ordinary criminals and vandals and street thugs and normal military action]
6) Do they disguise themselves or pretend that they are ordinary civilians? [This goes to the fundamentally unlawful nature of terrorism, by not acting under the color of the laws of war or international law, and thereby putting civilians at risk of attack or collateral damage]
If you don't meet all of these criteria, or find yourself arguing that a group doesn't meet a prong, then you might be dealing with something other than terrorism. Like Piracy (missing prong 5), ordinary military action (lacking 3 and 4 and 6), covert government operations (lacking 4), war crimes (lacking 4), paramilitary/freedom fighters/insurgents (lacking 1, 3).
A State Sponsor of Terrorism provides support to non-governmental entities engaged in terrorist activities. It is fair to say that a leader who supports terrorism is himself a terrorist, sort of like how its fair to say an accessory to murder is a murderer. However, deliberately targeting civilians/ethnic cleansing/genocide is a war crime, and calling war criminals terrorists just confuses the issue.
Hackers and script kiddies are just ordinary criminals. If Al Queda launched a cyber attack to knock out a hospitals computer infrastructure, that would be terrorism.
Slashdot Mirror
Librarian here. Why pay for access when your public library is already paying for the good stuff? Knowledge will always be free at your local public library. Most US libraries have access to paywalled news and scientific articles through Academic Search Premier, Gale and other databases. Our county library system offers free access to Zinio's magazine service, which is pretty sweet. Local (community) colleges usually have reference services available for county residents, and are often willing to mail you a journal article. Using these services take some effort (writing an e-mail or using your library card) so they aren't ideal for instantaneous gratification. Check out http://www.publiclibraries.com... to find your local library.
As far as where to get your news, start with an RSS reader (Feedly, Netvibes, gReader) and get the rss feeds for:
The twitter feed of your local newspapers
Google News
Your favorite TV news station (CNN, Al Jazeera, MSNBC, etc)
memeorandum for politics
A few international broadcasters of countries that you are interested in (VOA, BBC, RFI, RFERL, etc)
university libraries aren't open to the public.
I'd start with New York City's public library system. Find a librarian to help you get access to the various electronic databases, which includes Academic Search Premier and a bunch of others. If you need a specific journal article, print out the abstract or citation that you found on line, and bring it with you to the library. You can often find similar and/or more up to date articles for free with the help of the librarian. If access to the article isn't available through the public library, you might be able to get METRO access to a university library or private special collection: http://metro.org/referral-cards/. A librarian could also try to ILL you a copy of the article, but it takes some time.
Public university libraries are almost always open to the public...that's SUNY and CUNY. If you are lucky, you can get a daily guest password for the computer databases, but YMMV. I'd call around to a number of public universities and ask about guest policies.
I love Feedly. But it is NOT a straight RSS Reader. It personalizes and selects those stories that it thinks you want to read. It also has some pretty neat discovery features. That said, I've used Feedly for weeks, without realizing that I had missed stories from some of my favorite sites. I like to switch between Netvibes and Feedly, honestly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inchoate_offense
>I guess the next step is writing a novel using a hexeditor?
I attempt (almost always unsuccessfully) to write a novel for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo.org) every November.
Of course, the perfect text editor to use for NaNoWriMo: Nano!
I find it lightweight, fully featured and easy to use. It can easily call up the "spell" spellchecker - but it doesn't give suggestions. It also doesn't give a word count.
So when I need more advanced features, I fire up Open Office. http://www.afterthedeadline.com/ has a great grammar checker as well.
I also keep an encrypted diary on Linux using Lifeograph.
I'm very happy that the opensource movement has plenty of free tools for writers!
Aside from being in the same room, these programmers were barely working together....
I've worked in some crowded office conditions, but absolutely nothing like what is pictured in this article. There are 10 people crowded into this 1 person office space. I could see six people fitting into this space humanely - eg without violating the fire code / without personality conflicts / without bumping into each other while working.
I guess this is why they only hired skinny people for this internship!
However, good clear writing can be judged. The study points out that the best wikipedia entries are done by editors who are GOOD writers who know how to a) contribute new sentences (write a first draft), b) re-write sentences (re-drafting), c) add references (source checking), d) make grammatical and other edits (final drafting).
The formula for writing good content has not changed. It's just the proportions (collaboration) that have made the process more efficient and provided more content which are in need of lots of editing!
Lots of people go to ftc.gov -- its traffic rank is around 10,000...
This anti-stab knife is horribly flawed. Sure, it is difficult to stab with it, but it looks unsafe. By unsafe, I mean, difficult to sharpen, difficult to chop and cut veggies and meat with. This will lead to injury. Loss of fingers. Etc. This sort of dangerous product is the sort of thing that should be kept off shelves, IMHO.
Is detecting a bullet once fired even practical? A typical rifle bullet travels between approximately 700 m/s to 1000m/s.
Assuming a 1000 m/s bullet, like a 50BMG or 338LM, if a sniper is positioned 2km away, it will take 2 seconds for the round to reach the target. 1km, 1 second.
Problem is that most sniper engagements are not at extreme long ranges. Most occur between 275-550 meters. That means a quarter to a half a second.
That is not enough time to get out of the way of a typical bullet, even if your reaction is instantaneous.
I agree that private individuals and corporations have a right to restrict what they want. But they have to play by the rules that we all agreed upon when we joined the site.
When you sign up, you have to agree to an acceptable use policy which bans "obscene, pornographic or sexually explicit" images.
So how exactly is a woman breast feeding obscene? It is not, of course, and I dare say that the Facebook owners ever intended for these photos to be banned.
But the way that Facebook censors interpret the rule is that is if there is any nipple showing, it gets deleted.
Clearly, management needs to rewrite the censors rule book to allow an exception for breast-feeding.
This has almost nothing to do with the first amendment, and more to do with a woman's "right to privacy" -- ie. the right to do what she wants with her body without prudes or religious nuts making it illegal.
Can the police put a beeper/tracker in a container which is sold to a suspect? Yes, according to United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276 (1983) [ http://supreme.justia.com/us/460/276/index.html ] and United States v Karo, 468 U.S. 705 (1984) [ http://supreme.justia.com/us/468/705/index.html ].
Basically, a person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements.
I had a K8T800 motherboard for an old AMD 3200+ processor. It was considered state of the art and cutting edge and all that...how the mighty have fallen.
First off, the 11th Amendment was ratified in 1795 after the Supreme Court ruled that Article 3, Section 2, of the Constitution abrogated the States' sovereign immunity and granted federal courts the affirmative power to hear disputes between private citizens and States.
The 11th Amendment states that "The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State."
Sovereign immunity isn't perfectly in line with democratic values and norms, which is why it has numerous exceptions...since our elected representatives can waive claims of immunity by appropriate legislation, like the Federal Tort Claims Act.
I don't think anyone has a problem with the police using this technology to catch car thieves, finding (abandoned) stolen vehicles, and finding people with outstanding warrants.
What people do have a problem with is using this technology to ticket people with expired license/registration/insurance. I know people who have been pulled over for expired licenses (one week past expired) in one town, let go to drive home/finish errands, and then pulled over immediately in the next town and ticketed. Its a scam...you can't drive without a license, but if it expires, how are you supposed to get to DMV without breaking the law if you have no friends or relatives or public transportation to take you there?
Game rules are not copyrightable. The idea for a game is not protected by copyright. The same is true of the name or title given to the game and of the method or methods for playing it....Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in the development, merchandising, or playing of a game. See http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html
7. Does it run linux?
Profplump is correct. Depending on what State you live in, a landlord may be able to force you to remove a political sign from your property.
The First Amendment only provides that the government may not abridge any citizen's right to freedom of speech...BUT it does not cover interactions between private citizens. Thus, a landlord and tenant can sign a lease that forbids the tenant to display a political or commercial sign on the property without the approval of the landlord.
However, the apartment or house that you rent is not only the landlord's property, it is your property as well, and you have rights that go along with that property that are not alterable by contract. You have the right to use the property as your home. The landlord shouldn't be able to tell you what you can do in your home. Obviously, you shouldn't be able to knock down the house, or put in a new wall, but in a residential lease, why should the landlord prohibit putting up wall hangings...or tell you how to raise your children?
People do not have any bargaining power when it comes to signing residential leases usually and provisions like this are overlooked. Besides, people have a reasonable expectation to do home-like things to their rental property, like putting up pictures and hanging curtains.
How does this relate to the internet? The internet is a quasi-public space. Users have an expectation that they have the right to say what they think, as long as what they are saying or doing isn't illegal. So when a private company comes along and says that you are violating our TOS then people get pissed...especially because our private money helped lay down the infrastructure for the internet.
Its interesting how the download numbers per country reflect that countries economic development. Chad has only 2 downloads, and Central African Republic has 3, while South Africa has 18,000. North Korea has 0, while South Korea has over 44,000.
...not businesses. The whole idea of municipal Wi-fi is that everyone can have it, profit or no profit...tragedy of the commons and all....and since Earthlink abandoned their effort to provide municipal Wi-Fi access because they couldn't lure enough paying customers...it just goes to show that non-public corporations do a lousy job providing public services. The internet is akin to a utility, and should be regulated in the publics best interest, not some investors bottom line.
Wait, Kucinich and Paul aren't fringe kooks? /mod this funny
The reason why the evidence isn't allowed to be used at trial is that the punishment is supposed to be "prophylactic" in order to prevent law enforcement from failing to secure a warrant (except in very narrowly defined extreme cases).
The 4th Amendment is a right of an individual against the government. The wording is strong. This right "shall not be violated". The right guarantees that only reasonable searches and seizures will be allowed. Moreover, highly specific warrants are required that can only be issued by a judge when there is probable cause.
So, how could this individual right be vindicated against the government if the evidence is not excluded? Firing the cop isn't the solution...he just acted unreasonably, not criminally. Cops aren't lawyers. Dropping the charges in their entirety would be an injustice. Excluding evidence is really the best way to prevent injustice from occurring.
If we as a society dislike this technicality, lets get rid of it and overturn the 4th Amendment...or tweak it to make it say what we mean.
They already tried it with their slim notebook...but they forgot that slim != small
Actually, what you describe (violent act intending to cause intimidation) is not necessarily terrorism. It could be the legitimate use of force, the result of an armed robbery, or a simple assault.
This is why I developed:
Ubuwalker's 6 pronged guide to determining if a person or entity is a terrorist:
1) Did they intend to cause mass terror? [This is an objective test; just because something is scary, doesn't make it terrorism.]
2) Did they use violence or threat of violence? [This rules out non-violent protesters, but includes activities related to violence, like arson]
3) Did they deliberately (and routinely) target non-combatant civilians? [Actions that target military personnel aren't terrorism. An entity which is involved in isolated and infrequent acts which meet criteria 1-6 are more characteristic of war crimes, rather than terrorism, as they might be revenge attacks or guerrilla attacks of opportunity, or of splinter cells, or accidental engagements of civilian target, or engagements of legitimate military targets where civilian combatant are killed, and thus would not be indicative of a systematic policy of engaging in terrorism]
4) Are they a non-governmental organization? [otherwise the action is a war-crime or crime against humanity or piracy or the actor is a State Sponsor of Terrorism]
5) Did they have a political goal? [This rules out ordinary criminals and vandals and street thugs and normal military action]
6) Do they disguise themselves or pretend that they are ordinary civilians? [This goes to the fundamentally unlawful nature of terrorism, by not acting under the color of the laws of war or international law, and thereby putting civilians at risk of attack or collateral damage]
If you don't meet all of these criteria, or find yourself arguing that a group doesn't meet a prong, then you might be dealing with something other than terrorism. Like Piracy (missing prong 5), ordinary military action (lacking 3 and 4 and 6), covert government operations (lacking 4), war crimes (lacking 4), paramilitary/freedom fighters/insurgents (lacking 1, 3).
A State Sponsor of Terrorism provides support to non-governmental entities engaged in terrorist activities. It is fair to say that a leader who supports terrorism is himself a terrorist, sort of like how its fair to say an accessory to murder is a murderer. However, deliberately targeting civilians/ethnic cleansing/genocide is a war crime, and calling war criminals terrorists just confuses the issue.
Hackers and script kiddies are just ordinary criminals. If Al Queda launched a cyber attack to knock out a hospitals computer infrastructure, that would be terrorism.
I am curious to see benchmarks comparing the Nano with Intel and AMD chips. Any links?