"... so I can't throw my vote away on some guy who believes in what I believe because then the "other party" will get in, and they don't agree with some diversive issue!"
"There are two parties: the Stupid Party and the Evil Party. Once in a while, they get together and do something that is both Stupid and Evil. This is called 'bipartisanism'." -- Thomas E. Woods.
"Of course I used it - rather than paraphrase your statements, I juxtaposed it with your later ones that clearly back away from your original position, to illustrate how you eventually came to agreeing with me; even though you insist you aren't and that my original position was yours."
Absolute proof you are trolling. Because that is the exact opposite of what you actually did. You quoted that sentence, then claimed I had reached the same conclusion in my later statements. But what you did not realize (and which I then pointed out), was that the conclusion you accused me of arriving at later was implicit in that original statement all along.
There is no "backtracking" involved... I showed that the conclusion was the same as the one I discussed later, not any change of mind or story on my part. YOU, on the other hand, have kept claiming I said one thing, then you have claimed I was saying something else, then you claim I said the first (contradictory) thing again. When (as I clearly showed), nothing of the sort was going on.
No more replies. You are a completely full of shit troll. Too bad Slashdot does not have a "flag this poster as troll" button. From my point of view you are a scum-of-the-earth lowlife with obvious emotional problems.
Well, thank you for recognizing that we were discussing different things, and in return I retract any personal statements that I made. Misunderstandings do happen. I only take offense when they continue without reasonable basis.
"... your fully-surrounding privacy fence does seem to qualify in that 4-point test..."
Yes, my comment about curtilage was based on the 4 points mentioned in DUNN. While they did not explicitly say so, in so many words (which was inaccurate on my part), I believe the descriptions of curtilage clearly imply that the situation I had described would have been covered.
"... your nebulous state statute..."
I freely admit that my argument was somewhat ambiguous, but necessarily so as I was unwilling (for reasons completely unrelated to the discussion) to cite the exact working of the statutes I mentioned. I do apologize for that, and perhaps it seems somewhat paranoid (in the non-technical sense) to you, but I am willing to put up with a certain amount of skepticism or disbelief on the part of others in order to preserve my privacy.
"I was assuming you live in one of the states in the United States of America, since the thread originated with the discussion of the US Constitution."
Pardon me. For some reason I had it in my head that CALIFORNIA v. CIRAOLO was a California state decision. My bad, as far as that goes. However, it is still irrelevant as it uses the 4th amendment as its foundation, and does not address more restrictive State statute.
"You must live in a really strange place (Aruba?) because surveillance is constantly done without a warrant. It's typically a precursor to obtaining probably cause for a warrant."
No, I live in the contiguous 48, and it is NOT "consistently done" here, as I have repeatedly stated, because it is against our State statutes. Your snide remarks do not legal arguments make.
"Oh, I see - you're ranting in ignorance. CIRAOLO is a decision from the Supreme Court of the United States. It makes rulings on the Constitutionality of laws and their enforcement throughout the entire country. You see, the defense tried to argue that the police action violated the 4th Amendment, and the Supreme Court of the United States (a.k.a. SCOTUS) said it did not. That ruling, then, applies to ALL states in the United States. Get it?"
Okay, you have just confirmed that you are not a lawyer, or at least definitely not a competent one. But I am starting to wonder whether you are a dumbshit as well.
NO. Get this through your head: YOU are arguing from dumbassedness. The Supreme Court can rule "A policeman can conduct activity X because it is not against the 4th Amendment" all it wants... and that still HAS NO BEARING on a State statute that more restrictively says "an officer many not conduct activity X, at all", which does NOT rely on the 4th Amendment as its justification. In other words, it is perfectly okay for States to restrict Law Enforcement more than the United States Constitution. If you do not understand THAT, then you have no business pretending to know much of anything about law. Get it? But that is exactly the situation that I very clearly described.
Further, though I also incorrectly thought that Florida v. Riley was a State decision (and I really don't know the cause of such a brain fart, because I did in fact look them up to be sure I knew which cases they were), the situation is nearly identical because it justifies police action on the grounds that it is allowed by the 4th Amendment, but again it has absolutely no relevance to more restrictive State statute. I thought I had already explained that you were using generalizations based on U.S. Constitution to support your arguments, but that they do not apply in regard to State statutes that have nothing whatever to do with the 4th Amendment. But apparently I did not make it sufficiently clear to get the point across to you.
"Once again, you don't understand the legal theory in question. All it did is define when some areas OUTSIDE of the walls of your house are provided an "expectation of privacy". The answer, in short, is "almost never". It completely covers the situation you described, because police can be anywhere they want to be, and if they want to say they weren't conducting surveillance, all they have to do is say "No, I just happened to be there."
You are being quite an ass, you know that? I understand the theory perfectly fine. And the fact remains that DUNN is a decision about curtilage that is CLEARLY in contradiction to the curtilage situation that I described in plain words. I described a residence with a yard enclosed in a 6-foot wood fence. DUNN involved a barn that was OUTSIDE any fence that defined curtilage, according to SCOTUS, including any fence that was around or attached to the house. That is NOT at all the same situation, and DUNN very clearly does not apply to the situation that I described, which was an area that is plainly INSIDE commo
What I meant to say is: if it's a functional difference it should also have no bearing on how "different" it is, from a design standpoint, so it should also not affect a design patent's process or validity.
So I don't get what your point is. It would seem to make no difference to what was being discussed.
CALIFORNIA v. CIRAOLO has no bearing in my state. I cannot say whether the surveillance laws here are unusual, but if you paid attention at all, it should be obvious they are different here than in California. As I clearly stated, surveillance is illegal without a warrant, completely without regard to whether is being done from a "public" viewpoint. And also without regard to whether it violates the 4th Amendment, as considered in CIRAOLO, since it is a specific, more restrictive State law that does not rely on 4th Amendment for its justification.
Similarly, FLORIDA v. RILEY is also irrelevant because the officer engaged in behavior that is clearly in violation of our state statutes governing surveillance. As I clearly explained. I don't live in Florida.
And finally, US v. DUNN is a decision about a situation that is completely different from what I described, and in fact would not have contradicted the situation that I described, at all. Not only was the situation physically, totally different, but the officers in question already had warrants to be conducting at least some forms of surveillance.
Also, it should be noted that US. v. DUNN directly contradicts the reasoning of the solid minority opinion of the Supreme Court in the recent US v. JONES decision.
"Your porch or approach to the front door is pretty much NEVER considered a private area, and it doesn't matter at all WHY an officer is there. He can be there for any reason or none at all. So your legal theory is not one that is accepted by the courts."
Obviously you do not live in my state. Officers here cannot even go from door to door soliciting donations for their policeman's ball. If they do not have official business on my property or some other kind of valid, legal justification, they cannot enter my property in their capacity as police officers. (An off-duty officer friend of mine could certainly make a social visit, and an on-duty officer can be here if invited. Otherwise no.)
I was witness to this very situation a few years ago, when someone caused a disturbance in the house where I was renting an apartment, and a neighbor called the police. When the police arrived, they found that there was no current disturbance (the party causing the disturbance -- and as I learned much later, a very disturbed party, indeed, but that's not really relevant -- had calmed down).
When they found nothing untoward, and were not given explicit permission to further investigate, although they were suspicious and did not want to leave, they had no choice but to retreat from the property, out to the sidewalk and the street, which was a good 100 feet or more. They hung around a while to make sure there was no further disturbance, but they had to do so OFF THE PROPERTY. Personally I don't blame them for being a bit suspicious, the circumstances were somewhat unusual. But because they had no further specific, legal justification for being on the property, they could not be, by law and had to remove themselves from it. This is not some "legal theory, not... accepted by the courts", it is the law in this state.
"Sorry, but the courts don't care. Police and LEO are allowed to enter these areas at any time and for any purpose, the entire point being that you do not have any "expectation of privacy" in those areas."
And I repeat: that is simply not so, here. You are generalizing based on some kind of concept of yours, of "national average" or something, which is a questionable legal concept to say the very least. You have cited the laws of 2 OTHER states (in different circuits, no less) and one SCOTUS decision that was about a completely different situation than the one I described as an example, and used those to try to justify your generalizations. At the same time, you have completely ignored my own explanation of our specific state statutes. Sorry, but your attempt to generalize this c
Design patents have absolutely NOTHING to do with innovation... even in design! They only have to do with being DIFFERENT. Not the same thing at all.
Questions pertaining to design patents would be more along the line of: "Did the person at Company A who designed the exterior of this radio actually create that Art Deco look in a unique way? Or did she borrow too much from Company B's Art Deco designs from last year?" Or, "No, we can't do that, because Company C already uses an oval dial too much like that."
There is nothing even remotely involving "innovation" in design patents. The sole criterion is that you are different from everybody else.
"The prevailing legal theory is that having a walkway, a front door, a facade, etc., makes your front yard and environs an "invitation" to the public to approach the house. So you can't stop the police from wandering on your property and checking out the outside without a privacy fence completely surrounding your house and a locked gate at the driveway."
Complete horseshit. I don't know where you live or where you got your information, but in my state anyway, nothing even remotely like that "prevailing legal theory" exists. Police have no right to come onto my property unless they have AT LEAST reasonable suspicion in a few very specific circumstances, and in the vast majority of cases they must have probable cause or be specifically allowed by an adult at the residence. They can knock on the door if they have official business but they may not walk up to my door in order to conduct any kind of search or surveillance without cause, which means a warrant or in the course of an arrest for something else.
They have NO presumed right or "invitation" to come onto my property at any time, regardless of the presence of any drive or walkway, or even "open house" signs on the front lawn. NONE. It simply doesn't exist. It might be remotely possible that it does exist in your particular state, but if so, that's probably why I don't live there. In practice, I don't think state laws vary quite that much.
While on the subject, also speaking only for my own state: it is illegal for law enforcement to conduct surveillance on my property without a warrant based on probable cause. And "surveillance" is in interesting term in regard to the law. For example: obviously, if I leave the curtains open in the front of my house, it is not reasonable to blame anyone who is walking past for glancing inside. But habitually staring through my window (not just law enforcement, but even the neighbor across the street), to see what is going on inside, or using binoculars or a camera, is "surveillance" and is illegal... even if my curtains remain open.
It is also illegal to use any means to view on my property what cannot be seen from normal, reasonable activity OUTSIDE my property. So for example, if I have a 6-foot fence around my yard (the maximum height allowed inside the city limits without applying for a variance), and you are a person 5'8" tall, you can see the front yard and the back fence, and possibly glimpse a few things through any gaps or knotholes in the fence while walking by... but peering through the knothole to see the activity inside, or standing on a ladder or using a periscope to see over the fence, is again illegal surveillance. However, back to the other side: kids next door bouncing on a trampoline for fun or exercise are not conducting "surveillance" if they can thus see over the fence. It depends entirely on the individual circumstances.
The reason I have gone on about this, is that it is important because it ALSO applies to things like police helicopters and drones. If they HAPPEN TO BE flying over, in the course of going from one point of interest to another, and accidentally happen to spot something illegal, so be it. However, if they are being used with the intention of conducting surveillance -- defined as trying to see things on my property that would not normally be seen by passersby -- it is ILLEGAL without a warrant based on probable cause. This is true regardless of whether they are doing it to every house in the whole neighborhood, or randomly, or individually. So drones here wouldn't wash. The way the law works, in most cases either they'd be completely useless, or they'd be mired down in court challenges so often as to render them giant cash black holes for law enforcement. I can see them being used as additional resources where warrants already exist, or in large tracts of public land, etc. But those aren't the kinds of things that are privacy concerns for most people, anyway.
No, IANAL. But I am familiar with the laws in my state, because as a privacy advocate it behooves me to be. I have had to look them up and inquire about them on a number of occasions, and I have read detailed explanations of these things BY lawyers in my state.
"I'm not sure what isn't clear in my original position nor that you eventually reached the same conclusion."
Absolute horseshit. I will explain this for the third and last time, since you still don't seem to get it: I "reached that conclusion" in the very beginning, in this sentence:
"Which means yes, I would want exactly that... an unfettered Internet connection, just like anybody off-campus could get." [emphasis added]
"Just like anybody off-campus could get" clearly implies not literally unlimited, and not absolutely "unfettered", because the average off-campus ISP does not provide infinite bandwidth, or 100.000% of the internet's content.
But you keep putting bait out there, which has been almost too tempting to resist. Which is precisely why I suggested you may be trolling. That's how trolling got its name.
"Correct. Which ultimately was exactly the same as my original point although for some reason you can't seem to grasp that. Oh well."
No, you are the one failing to grasp. Look dude, I'll put it as simply as I can: if we were actually making the same point, why were you arguing with me in the first place? Was it just a mistake on your part, or were you baiting me, or did you truly not understand? Because it almost has to be one of those three.
That's called a "slam-dunk". That's not the only issue with this exchange but it is sufficient to show that you are either ignorant or a troll. Note that I didn't say "stupid". I'm not accusing you of that.
I have already shown that we could NOT have been making the same point. So I'm not going to go over that again. But add in the fact that you were arguing with me over that point, and we get a pretty solid conclusion, but it isn't the one you have been stating. Because even if we HAD been stating the same things, then you would have had no legitimate reason to be arguing with me. So either way, you are on the wrong side of the argument.
I am not going to review anything. I have made my points, you did not understand them; that is that. I am done here. I have no reason to continue repeating myself. I'll let other readers judge what is what.
That was supposed to have been: "The fact that you do not seem to understand what a 'straw-man' argument actually is, or an 'ad-hominem attack', is strong evidence of this."
"There you again again, backtracking after you agreed with me and now somehow deciding what you said wasn't what you mean."
I repeat: you are completely full of shit. YOU were not agreeing with ME at all, as I clearly demonstrated. It is a mystery to me why you did not follow that logic; perhaps you just have no education in formal logic. The fact that you do not seem to understand what a "straw-man" argument actually is, or an "ad-hominem attack". I can only conclude that you are ignorant of other basic concepts of logic as well.
Again, I say: too bad that you don't seem to understand that. But I think readers of this thread will see it plainly. Most readers do not seem to exhibit the comprehension issues you have paraded here for all to see.
"Better solution - Maintain a fake 2nd page covered in information about how much you support various federally protected classes to which you may (or may not) actually belong."
Depends on how the Supreme Court rules this year on "Affirmative Action". The very concept of "federally protected classes" might just disappear. As well it should: you cannot eliminate discrimination by way of embedding discrimination by default into the law. That only serves to perpetuate it.
You are completely full of shit. I tried to drop the conversation, rather than "insist on winning", because we weren't arguing about the same things, which I have already proved. Too bad you aren't intelligent enough to have realized that even now. But you just wouldn't leave it alone.
Oh, you're snarking all right. And as far as I am concerned, you can come to pretty much whatever conclusion you want. I don't think either your arguments or "conclusions" will convince any other Slashdot readers any more than they have convinced me.
Apologies, I know I stated that I would not reply anymore, but I simply could not resist this one last time.
You have simply proven my point. *I* could not be trolling YOU, because it is you who keep insisting on arguing with me and asserting that I stated things I actually haven't.
So THAT argument, at least, you definitively lose.
I'm not sure where the claim "Obama wasn't responsible" comes in, because he certainly WAS responsible for helping to continue this mess. Not to mention lying during his campaign about almost all of his actual political agenda.
Be that as it may, I have to agree that "corporatism", or greedy corporations in league with government, is indeed about the farthest thing from capitalism that exists.
"Fascism should rightly be called corporatism as it is a merger of state and corporate power" --Benito Mussolini
"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day." --Theodore Roosevelt
It should be obvious that this "first task" has yet to be completed.
It grieves me when blame for these problems is placed on "capitalism". Mr. Jackson seems to have gotten many things right but he errs if he is actually equating this "neo-liberalism" with capitalism. He should read his Adam Smith. They are not even remotely the same things. Fractional-reserve banking and the Federal Reserve are not "capitalism", they represent Keynesianism. And yes, even though government policies were behind many of their actions, they still do deserve a good bit of the blame. Their very existence is "anti-capitalism".
Wall Street is NOT an example of "capitalism at its finest". Not even close. It is no more than a government-endorsed casino. Complete with the house advantage. And the so-called "big content" companies, represented by the RIAA, MPAA and other organizations, are in fact excellent examples of Fascist philosophy, not examples of capitalism at all, good or bad.
The problem is that you have to hook into the software at exactly the right point: between the deCSSed data and the video encoder, which just encrypts it again a different way (if it's HD).
As I explained in another reply above, copyright law and property law are 2 different things. Owning a book (yes, it is YOURS) does not give you the right to sell copies.
"It's certainly possible have the same "content" in two files which would fail any kind of mechanical equality test."
Yes, that was precisely my point. You can take a movie, and a any text file, and compress them together into a.zip file. Take the same movie, and compress it with a different text file (even just a few characters different), and the.zip files will be different files according to a CRC or any other reliable, mechanical identity test.
That is why I said in order to be sure, you would have to uncompress all compressed files and actually compare the contents. Which is (a) intrusive, and (b) time-consuming.
The fact that such processing is intrusive is exactly what got DropBox in trouble with its customers, because their Terms of Service said DropBox did not have access to an actual file's content, but they were found to be deduplicating. So they were lying, because in order to do that they HAD to have access to the original files.
"Also can you ensure that it is impossible two non identical files (of the same size) to have the same CRC?"
No, you cannot. CRC is not infallible. But any two files of the same size, with the same CRC, are extremely likely to be identical. I don't recall what the exact odds are, but it's something like 16^32 to 1. That's a pretty big number.
Slashdot Mirror
"... so I can't throw my vote away on some guy who believes in what I believe because then the "other party" will get in, and they don't agree with some diversive issue!"
"There are two parties: the Stupid Party and the Evil Party. Once in a while, they get together and do something that is both Stupid and Evil. This is called 'bipartisanism'." -- Thomas E. Woods.
You're supposed to do those FIRST...
"Of course I used it - rather than paraphrase your statements, I juxtaposed it with your later ones that clearly back away from your original position, to illustrate how you eventually came to agreeing with me; even though you insist you aren't and that my original position was yours."
Absolute proof you are trolling. Because that is the exact opposite of what you actually did. You quoted that sentence, then claimed I had reached the same conclusion in my later statements. But what you did not realize (and which I then pointed out), was that the conclusion you accused me of arriving at later was implicit in that original statement all along.
There is no "backtracking" involved... I showed that the conclusion was the same as the one I discussed later, not any change of mind or story on my part. YOU, on the other hand, have kept claiming I said one thing, then you have claimed I was saying something else, then you claim I said the first (contradictory) thing again. When (as I clearly showed), nothing of the sort was going on.
No more replies. You are a completely full of shit troll. Too bad Slashdot does not have a "flag this poster as troll" button. From my point of view you are a scum-of-the-earth lowlife with obvious emotional problems.
"... your fully-surrounding privacy fence does seem to qualify in that 4-point test..."
Yes, my comment about curtilage was based on the 4 points mentioned in DUNN. While they did not explicitly say so, in so many words (which was inaccurate on my part), I believe the descriptions of curtilage clearly imply that the situation I had described would have been covered.
"... your nebulous state statute..."
I freely admit that my argument was somewhat ambiguous, but necessarily so as I was unwilling (for reasons completely unrelated to the discussion) to cite the exact working of the statutes I mentioned. I do apologize for that, and perhaps it seems somewhat paranoid (in the non-technical sense) to you, but I am willing to put up with a certain amount of skepticism or disbelief on the part of others in order to preserve my privacy.
"I was assuming you live in one of the states in the United States of America, since the thread originated with the discussion of the US Constitution."
Pardon me. For some reason I had it in my head that CALIFORNIA v. CIRAOLO was a California state decision. My bad, as far as that goes. However, it is still irrelevant as it uses the 4th amendment as its foundation, and does not address more restrictive State statute.
"You must live in a really strange place (Aruba?) because surveillance is constantly done without a warrant. It's typically a precursor to obtaining probably cause for a warrant."
No, I live in the contiguous 48, and it is NOT "consistently done" here, as I have repeatedly stated, because it is against our State statutes. Your snide remarks do not legal arguments make.
"Oh, I see - you're ranting in ignorance. CIRAOLO is a decision from the Supreme Court of the United States. It makes rulings on the Constitutionality of laws and their enforcement throughout the entire country. You see, the defense tried to argue that the police action violated the 4th Amendment, and the Supreme Court of the United States (a.k.a. SCOTUS) said it did not. That ruling, then, applies to ALL states in the United States. Get it?"
Okay, you have just confirmed that you are not a lawyer, or at least definitely not a competent one. But I am starting to wonder whether you are a dumbshit as well.
NO. Get this through your head: YOU are arguing from dumbassedness. The Supreme Court can rule "A policeman can conduct activity X because it is not against the 4th Amendment" all it wants... and that still HAS NO BEARING on a State statute that more restrictively says "an officer many not conduct activity X, at all", which does NOT rely on the 4th Amendment as its justification. In other words, it is perfectly okay for States to restrict Law Enforcement more than the United States Constitution. If you do not understand THAT, then you have no business pretending to know much of anything about law. Get it? But that is exactly the situation that I very clearly described.
Further, though I also incorrectly thought that Florida v. Riley was a State decision (and I really don't know the cause of such a brain fart, because I did in fact look them up to be sure I knew which cases they were), the situation is nearly identical because it justifies police action on the grounds that it is allowed by the 4th Amendment, but again it has absolutely no relevance to more restrictive State statute. I thought I had already explained that you were using generalizations based on U.S. Constitution to support your arguments, but that they do not apply in regard to State statutes that have nothing whatever to do with the 4th Amendment. But apparently I did not make it sufficiently clear to get the point across to you.
"Once again, you don't understand the legal theory in question. All it did is define when some areas OUTSIDE of the walls of your house are provided an "expectation of privacy". The answer, in short, is "almost never". It completely covers the situation you described, because police can be anywhere they want to be, and if they want to say they weren't conducting surveillance, all they have to do is say "No, I just happened to be there."
You are being quite an ass, you know that? I understand the theory perfectly fine. And the fact remains that DUNN is a decision about curtilage that is CLEARLY in contradiction to the curtilage situation that I described in plain words. I described a residence with a yard enclosed in a 6-foot wood fence. DUNN involved a barn that was OUTSIDE any fence that defined curtilage, according to SCOTUS, including any fence that was around or attached to the house. That is NOT at all the same situation, and DUNN very clearly does not apply to the situation that I described, which was an area that is plainly INSIDE commo
What I meant to say is: if it's a functional difference it should also have no bearing on how "different" it is, from a design standpoint, so it should also not affect a design patent's process or validity.
So I don't get what your point is. It would seem to make no difference to what was being discussed.
"Not true at all. If the difference is functional rather than aesthetic it's out of scope a design patent."
Completely irrelevant, because I clearly stated that it was specifically in reference to design patents.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
You were quoting (and I was re-quoting) my original comment on the matter, which made my point! And you call even referring to THAT, "backtracking"!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
It's almost TOO ridiculous to be funny!
Similarly, FLORIDA v. RILEY is also irrelevant because the officer engaged in behavior that is clearly in violation of our state statutes governing surveillance. As I clearly explained. I don't live in Florida.
And finally, US v. DUNN is a decision about a situation that is completely different from what I described, and in fact would not have contradicted the situation that I described, at all. Not only was the situation physically, totally different, but the officers in question already had warrants to be conducting at least some forms of surveillance.
Also, it should be noted that US. v. DUNN directly contradicts the reasoning of the solid minority opinion of the Supreme Court in the recent US v. JONES decision.
"Your porch or approach to the front door is pretty much NEVER considered a private area, and it doesn't matter at all WHY an officer is there. He can be there for any reason or none at all. So your legal theory is not one that is accepted by the courts."
Obviously you do not live in my state. Officers here cannot even go from door to door soliciting donations for their policeman's ball. If they do not have official business on my property or some other kind of valid, legal justification, they cannot enter my property in their capacity as police officers. (An off-duty officer friend of mine could certainly make a social visit, and an on-duty officer can be here if invited. Otherwise no.)
... accepted by the courts", it is the law in this state.
I was witness to this very situation a few years ago, when someone caused a disturbance in the house where I was renting an apartment, and a neighbor called the police. When the police arrived, they found that there was no current disturbance (the party causing the disturbance -- and as I learned much later, a very disturbed party, indeed, but that's not really relevant -- had calmed down).
When they found nothing untoward, and were not given explicit permission to further investigate, although they were suspicious and did not want to leave, they had no choice but to retreat from the property, out to the sidewalk and the street, which was a good 100 feet or more. They hung around a while to make sure there was no further disturbance, but they had to do so OFF THE PROPERTY. Personally I don't blame them for being a bit suspicious, the circumstances were somewhat unusual. But because they had no further specific, legal justification for being on the property, they could not be, by law and had to remove themselves from it. This is not some "legal theory, not
"Sorry, but the courts don't care. Police and LEO are allowed to enter these areas at any time and for any purpose, the entire point being that you do not have any "expectation of privacy" in those areas."
And I repeat: that is simply not so, here. You are generalizing based on some kind of concept of yours, of "national average" or something, which is a questionable legal concept to say the very least. You have cited the laws of 2 OTHER states (in different circuits, no less) and one SCOTUS decision that was about a completely different situation than the one I described as an example, and used those to try to justify your generalizations. At the same time, you have completely ignored my own explanation of our specific state statutes. Sorry, but your attempt to generalize this c
"also known as......INNOVATION"
No. Absolutely not.
Design patents have absolutely NOTHING to do with innovation... even in design! They only have to do with being DIFFERENT. Not the same thing at all.
Questions pertaining to design patents would be more along the line of: "Did the person at Company A who designed the exterior of this radio actually create that Art Deco look in a unique way? Or did she borrow too much from Company B's Art Deco designs from last year?" Or, "No, we can't do that, because Company C already uses an oval dial too much like that."
There is nothing even remotely involving "innovation" in design patents. The sole criterion is that you are different from everybody else.
"The prevailing legal theory is that having a walkway, a front door, a facade, etc., makes your front yard and environs an "invitation" to the public to approach the house. So you can't stop the police from wandering on your property and checking out the outside without a privacy fence completely surrounding your house and a locked gate at the driveway."
Complete horseshit. I don't know where you live or where you got your information, but in my state anyway, nothing even remotely like that "prevailing legal theory" exists. Police have no right to come onto my property unless they have AT LEAST reasonable suspicion in a few very specific circumstances, and in the vast majority of cases they must have probable cause or be specifically allowed by an adult at the residence. They can knock on the door if they have official business but they may not walk up to my door in order to conduct any kind of search or surveillance without cause, which means a warrant or in the course of an arrest for something else.
They have NO presumed right or "invitation" to come onto my property at any time, regardless of the presence of any drive or walkway, or even "open house" signs on the front lawn. NONE. It simply doesn't exist. It might be remotely possible that it does exist in your particular state, but if so, that's probably why I don't live there. In practice, I don't think state laws vary quite that much.
While on the subject, also speaking only for my own state: it is illegal for law enforcement to conduct surveillance on my property without a warrant based on probable cause. And "surveillance" is in interesting term in regard to the law. For example: obviously, if I leave the curtains open in the front of my house, it is not reasonable to blame anyone who is walking past for glancing inside. But habitually staring through my window (not just law enforcement, but even the neighbor across the street), to see what is going on inside, or using binoculars or a camera, is "surveillance" and is illegal... even if my curtains remain open.
It is also illegal to use any means to view on my property what cannot be seen from normal, reasonable activity OUTSIDE my property. So for example, if I have a 6-foot fence around my yard (the maximum height allowed inside the city limits without applying for a variance), and you are a person 5'8" tall, you can see the front yard and the back fence, and possibly glimpse a few things through any gaps or knotholes in the fence while walking by... but peering through the knothole to see the activity inside, or standing on a ladder or using a periscope to see over the fence, is again illegal surveillance. However, back to the other side: kids next door bouncing on a trampoline for fun or exercise are not conducting "surveillance" if they can thus see over the fence. It depends entirely on the individual circumstances.
The reason I have gone on about this, is that it is important because it ALSO applies to things like police helicopters and drones. If they HAPPEN TO BE flying over, in the course of going from one point of interest to another, and accidentally happen to spot something illegal, so be it. However, if they are being used with the intention of conducting surveillance -- defined as trying to see things on my property that would not normally be seen by passersby -- it is ILLEGAL without a warrant based on probable cause. This is true regardless of whether they are doing it to every house in the whole neighborhood, or randomly, or individually. So drones here wouldn't wash. The way the law works, in most cases either they'd be completely useless, or they'd be mired down in court challenges so often as to render them giant cash black holes for law enforcement. I can see them being used as additional resources where warrants already exist, or in large tracts of public land, etc. But those aren't the kinds of things that are privacy concerns for most people, anyway.
No, IANAL. But I am familiar with the laws in my state, because as a privacy advocate it behooves me to be. I have had to look them up and inquire about them on a number of occasions, and I have read detailed explanations of these things BY lawyers in my state.
"I'm not sure what isn't clear in my original position nor that you eventually reached the same conclusion."
Absolute horseshit. I will explain this for the third and last time, since you still don't seem to get it: I "reached that conclusion" in the very beginning, in this sentence:
"Which means yes, I would want exactly that... an unfettered Internet connection, just like anybody off-campus could get." [emphasis added]
"Just like anybody off-campus could get" clearly implies not literally unlimited, and not absolutely "unfettered", because the average off-campus ISP does not provide infinite bandwidth, or 100.000% of the internet's content.
"Correct. Which ultimately was exactly the same as my original point although for some reason you can't seem to grasp that. Oh well."
No, you are the one failing to grasp. Look dude, I'll put it as simply as I can: if we were actually making the same point, why were you arguing with me in the first place? Was it just a mistake on your part, or were you baiting me, or did you truly not understand? Because it almost has to be one of those three.
That's called a "slam-dunk". That's not the only issue with this exchange but it is sufficient to show that you are either ignorant or a troll. Note that I didn't say "stupid". I'm not accusing you of that.
I have already shown that we could NOT have been making the same point. So I'm not going to go over that again. But add in the fact that you were arguing with me over that point, and we get a pretty solid conclusion, but it isn't the one you have been stating. Because even if we HAD been stating the same things, then you would have had no legitimate reason to be arguing with me. So either way, you are on the wrong side of the argument.
I am not going to review anything. I have made my points, you did not understand them; that is that. I am done here. I have no reason to continue repeating myself. I'll let other readers judge what is what.
That was supposed to have been: "The fact that you do not seem to understand what a 'straw-man' argument actually is, or an 'ad-hominem attack', is strong evidence of this."
"There you again again, backtracking after you agreed with me and now somehow deciding what you said wasn't what you mean."
I repeat: you are completely full of shit. YOU were not agreeing with ME at all, as I clearly demonstrated. It is a mystery to me why you did not follow that logic; perhaps you just have no education in formal logic. The fact that you do not seem to understand what a "straw-man" argument actually is, or an "ad-hominem attack". I can only conclude that you are ignorant of other basic concepts of logic as well.
Again, I say: too bad that you don't seem to understand that. But I think readers of this thread will see it plainly. Most readers do not seem to exhibit the comprehension issues you have paraded here for all to see.
"Better solution - Maintain a fake 2nd page covered in information about how much you support various federally protected classes to which you may (or may not) actually belong."
Depends on how the Supreme Court rules this year on "Affirmative Action". The very concept of "federally protected classes" might just disappear. As well it should: you cannot eliminate discrimination by way of embedding discrimination by default into the law. That only serves to perpetuate it.
You are completely full of shit. I tried to drop the conversation, rather than "insist on winning", because we weren't arguing about the same things, which I have already proved. Too bad you aren't intelligent enough to have realized that even now. But you just wouldn't leave it alone.
Oh, you're snarking all right. And as far as I am concerned, you can come to pretty much whatever conclusion you want. I don't think either your arguments or "conclusions" will convince any other Slashdot readers any more than they have convinced me.
Apologies, I know I stated that I would not reply anymore, but I simply could not resist this one last time.
You have simply proven my point. *I* could not be trolling YOU, because it is you who keep insisting on arguing with me and asserting that I stated things I actually haven't.
So THAT argument, at least, you definitively lose.
Be that as it may, I have to agree that "corporatism", or greedy corporations in league with government, is indeed about the farthest thing from capitalism that exists.
"Fascism should rightly be called corporatism as it is a merger of state and corporate power" --Benito Mussolini
"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day." --Theodore Roosevelt
It should be obvious that this "first task" has yet to be completed.
It grieves me when blame for these problems is placed on "capitalism". Mr. Jackson seems to have gotten many things right but he errs if he is actually equating this "neo-liberalism" with capitalism. He should read his Adam Smith. They are not even remotely the same things. Fractional-reserve banking and the Federal Reserve are not "capitalism", they represent Keynesianism. And yes, even though government policies were behind many of their actions, they still do deserve a good bit of the blame. Their very existence is "anti-capitalism".
Wall Street is NOT an example of "capitalism at its finest". Not even close. It is no more than a government-endorsed casino. Complete with the house advantage. And the so-called "big content" companies, represented by the RIAA, MPAA and other organizations, are in fact excellent examples of Fascist philosophy, not examples of capitalism at all, good or bad.
The problem is that you have to hook into the software at exactly the right point: between the deCSSed data and the video encoder, which just encrypts it again a different way (if it's HD).
"... and yet wonder why I say you are backtracking?"
Because I wasn't backtracking. That's why.
I am serious. I am done here. You are either trolling me or a complete dumbass. I don't really care which; I have no more time for this BS.
As I explained in another reply above, copyright law and property law are 2 different things. Owning a book (yes, it is YOURS) does not give you the right to sell copies.
"It's certainly possible have the same "content" in two files which would fail any kind of mechanical equality test."
Yes, that was precisely my point. You can take a movie, and a any text file, and compress them together into a .zip file. Take the same movie, and compress it with a different text file (even just a few characters different), and the .zip files will be different files according to a CRC or any other reliable, mechanical identity test.
That is why I said in order to be sure, you would have to uncompress all compressed files and actually compare the contents. Which is (a) intrusive, and (b) time-consuming.
The fact that such processing is intrusive is exactly what got DropBox in trouble with its customers, because their Terms of Service said DropBox did not have access to an actual file's content, but they were found to be deduplicating. So they were lying, because in order to do that they HAD to have access to the original files.
"Also can you ensure that it is impossible two non identical files (of the same size) to have the same CRC?"
No, you cannot. CRC is not infallible. But any two files of the same size, with the same CRC, are extremely likely to be identical. I don't recall what the exact odds are, but it's something like 16^32 to 1. That's a pretty big number.