The question/task for the future is to figure out how to prevent this sort of abuse from happening again. It has been somewhat disturbing to see how easily your executive can disregard your highest laws with impunity only to have their actions repealed years later.
Actually, this is how we prevent it from happening again. And, to be fair, it wasn't the executive abusing power. He was given it by the congress.
Congress passes all kinds of laws which are later found to be unconstitutional by the court. The ultimate check, in our system, on the congress and president is the judiciary. How would you do it?
George Bush has proven that the American constitution has no teeth.
This case is an example of those teeth. Is it as timely as I would like? No. But I would rather have the correct decision after a well reasoned and thought out case, than a quick gut reflex (which is the role the congress usually plays). Assuming this decision is upheld on appeal, its now basically part of the constitution. I don't want that to be too easy or quick.
The US Mail service doesn't have a monopoly... You're free to start Theaveng's Letter Service tomorrow
No. No you're not. The USPS has a government enforced monopoly on the delivery of letters. If you started a service that attempted to compete, you'd be committing a crime. The monopoly is supposed to help protect the funding for the USPS's universal service obligation.
if the people believe the government acts in their interests, then there is social stability, and therefore happiness and prosperity.
You don't believe that this has largely been the case for the electoral college's 200+ year history? The US Constitution is the longest lasting national constitution for a reason. I'm not saying that it is perfect. But that fact does imply that the institutions it creates cannot be rejected out of hand.
Every institution created by the constitution is anti-democratic: Senate seats aren't based on population, the federal judiciary is unelected, a convoluted super-duper majority is needed to amend the constitution, the Bill of Rights specifies areas where the "will of the people" has no authority, even the concept of representative government is against true democracy. And yet, for all of those anti-democratic practices, our government is one of the most legitimate and stable in the world.
A true, direct democracy will self destruct. A government requires, not only the sanction of the majority, but the acceptance of the minority. You only have to look at the Oklahoma City bombing, Ireland over the last century, the former Yugoslavia, Muslim separatists in India, or the American civil war, to see what happens when the minority feels oppressed by the majority and that there is no democratic recourse. An unchecked majority will be seen as running roughshod over the rights of the minority.
you are flawed, because you don't trust the will of the people. the will of the people is infallible, because there is no way you can morally or intellectually stand apart from the people and judge them, because there is no morally or intellectually valid point of view that stands apart from the people
Okay. The constitution was designed to inhibit tyranny; whether that come in the form of an individual tyrant, or the tyranny of our neighbors. It set in place a system where individual freedom was protected wherever possible.
If you honestly believe that the will of the people is infallible, you either have no idea how the world works, or you are willfully ignoring the lessons of history. I just hope that in your utopia, you never find yourself on the wrong side of "the people".
do you get it that the way things work is wrong? or at least that that is the fucking subject matter?
I like the electoral college. Now, that being said, if the country was founded today, I don't think we would have come up with a similar system. But, here's why I like it.
-It emphasizes and protects the fundamental organizational structure of our republic; that of multiple levels of shared sovereignty. The constituency of the federal government is the states, not the people.
-It drastically reduces the chance of a nation-wide recount. Can you even imagine the 2000 election, if what was happening in Florida, took place all over the country? You would pretty much guarantee the election was decided by the Supreme Court or the House of Representatives.
-It supports the two party system. I know, I know. The two party system is a popular whipping boy. But it pretty much eliminates the possibility that a party will gain power that is 100% opposed to what 49% of the population believes. The two parties are similar enough that very few people are driven to extreme measures because their party lost.
-And finally, it has, more or less, reflected the will of the people. If the electoral college was usurping the will of the people in a serious way, I would be all for its abolishment. But it doesn't. George W. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000, but still got a higher percentage than Clinton did in '92. In neither case was it "majority rule".
I think the Electoral College is a flawed system. But, it has held up for over 200 years, through a civil war, the great depression, and even the 2000 election. I would need a lot of evidence that a better system exists, to believe that we should just scrap it and start from scratch.
the official record is al gore won the popular vote. please, show us contingencies and if-then conditions where this is not true. it doesn't mean anything
The popular vote doesn't matter. The president is not elected by the people. He's elected by the states, through their electors. By the rules of our political game, deciding the president by the popular vote makes as much sense as deciding a football game by most offensive yards gained.
If you want to change the rules, start with your state. Your state decides who will represent it in the electoral college, and can pick them however it wants. After enough states have switched to a proportional system, you're more likely to get support for changing the constitution to eliminate the undue influence of the smaller states.
we need to remove the electoral college, to prevent another a gw bush: gw bush was not the democratic will of the american people, according to factual record (not your suppositions).
You can't really say that. Both candidates ran campaigns which took into account the electoral college. Their strategies would have been vastly different with a popular vote. You wouldn't see both candidates ignore California and New York. Even though both are strongly Democratic, each contains more Republicans than Iowa.
Re:Does it always produce true responses?
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Very true. If he doesn't know, he's pretty much screwed. I'm not saying that torture is the end-all-be-all of interrogation techniques, but the common misconception that torture is useless, is harmful to the debate. There are so many better arguments against torture.
Most individuals could think of a situation where they would make the decision to torture, even if the results may possibly be false. The strongest arguments against torture do not deny that fact. They rest on the dangers of legitimizing and institutionalizing an action so repugnant to the civilized character.
Re:Does it always produce true responses?
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Umm.... how about pretty much inquisition trial that included torture?
I don't think he's talking about torture to obtain a confession, but rather torture to obtain actionable information. I would imagine an interrogation could be set up so that the subject is asked questions with only concrete and verifiable answers. The subject could be threatened with even more torture for non-compliance or misinformation. It would then be in his best interest to tell the truth as soon as possible.
Which must be why foreign governments are considering bailing out their automakers too, right?
Not the Japanese, which are the owners of the vast majority of transplant factories here in the USA. They make cars here; they sell cars here; and, best of all, they make money and have no need for a bailout.
Note also that you don't convert an SUV plant to making hybrids in "weeks", as you so blithely assert.
Yes. Yes they do. The Japanese designed their plants, from the beginning, to quickly and efficiently re-tool. While the change from SUV to hybrid is rather large, some of these plants can switch between more similar models overnight. Their factories, their supply chain, and their financing structure are designed for agility. Its a lesson the big three never learned.
But it's not the automakers' fault they built SUV's, so much as the customers' demand for SUV's.
No, the automakers were rewarded for producing what the consumer wanted. But they didn't really make any money when they were selling lots of (high-margin) SUVs. The Japanese automakers make money, as well as cars. When the current economic crisis hit, they were able to change and adapt, financed by the profit they earned in the fat years. It is GM's fault that they gave no thought to the future. I'm sure they assumed they were "too big to fail" and would get bailed out like in '79. For the same reason Fannie and Freddie failed, and were saved (implicit government backing, causing excess risk taking), GM has failed to take responsibility for its economic future and comes to the government with its hand out.
you mean the century of case law that says we the people have the right to time-shift, space-shift, and format-shift content we buy?
Those rights aren't restricted by copyright. You're correct. But the content distributors are perfectly free to put any DRM they want on the media they sell you. Just because you can doesn't mean they have to make it easy for you. (That's what the nice people on The Pirate Bay are for.)
Also, them changing the system and people needing to figure out which cup they hid the pea under doesn't mean it "worked"
Yes. Yes it does. I think the real genius behind BD+ is that each disc can contain different, newer copy protection. Each time one generation is broken, they can simply release all newer releases with a stronger version. They didn't have to invent a system which had to last for the life of the format. They only have to stay one step ahead of the crackers.
DRM doesn't work. It never did work, it probably never will work.
I'm pretty sure this story is about how DRM does work. It keeps people from copying the movie in full HD resolution, without getting in the way of 90% of consumers, and stays within the bounds of the law. That's pretty much the definition of successful DRM, from the industry's perspective. Until there is a crack available, BD+ is the current and best example of working DRM.
You know what would change the movie company attitudes about DRM? Massive public outrage, something that just hasn't happened yet for movies (for games, on the other hand, it has, somewhat). Most people never run up against the limitations imposed by DRM. I think we have to wait until people become more accustomed to the potential of ubiquitous media sharing before they care widely about movie DRM.
Yeah, its pretty much like that. If I were one of the BD+ developers, I'd be pretty proud of the fact that the DRM-hackers thought that RSA was most vulnerable part of my DRM scheme.
But seriously, if real advances are made in integer factorization because of attempts to crack BD+, I'm going to laugh my ass off.
You can't compare vision impaired and drunken drivers to teenagers, it's not the same thing. Two are a state a person can be in, and teenagers are a group of people.
Being a teenager was a state I was in for quite a few years. Your argument would be valid, if I was just picking people at random and grouping them together. Teenagers are a group of people, all of them sharing the same state. I'm not sure why I can't group together people whose physical or mental differences (however temporary or self-imposed those may be) make them higher risk drivers.
You don't screw over multiple people because many(most?) of them are not great at something. Get back under your bridge.
I'm pretty sure we do it all the time: young people can't vote because we believe they would not make rational and informed decisions, young people can't drink because we don't think they are responsible enough, unlicensed doctors can't practice because we don't think they have the knowledge to be safe and effective. Each of those cases has exceptions, people who, if given a chance, would use their power wisely. But we screw all of them over. I'm not saying that its right in every case, only that this cell phone thing is hardly a one-off problem.
Besides, many states have already implemented a graduated license system, where minors have more restrictions placed on their driving: no driving after a certain time, limits on the number of passengers, etc. I don't see why cell phone use couldn't be added to those laws.
Racial profiling and age profiling are equally dirty games to play.
That's actually a really good point. Theoretically they both stand on the same moral ground. But age profiling permeates almost every aspect of our society. We prohibit those under 16 from driving, even though some may be excellent drivers. We prohibit those under 18 from voting, even though many posses the capability to make rational political decisions. Under 21, can't drink. All of those choices are made based simply on age, not the individual circumstances or abilities. But I don't think its possible to make any of those choices on an individual basis for each person. Where do we draw the line? I don't know.
The other side of your point here is that none of us ever have to worry about being teenagers ever again. The level of personal risk is a *much* more salient factor for most people, I suspect, and in this case, it's zero.
If real, widespread injustice was being perpetrated, on a subset of society as numerous as teens, there would be more protest even from older people. There were many white abolitionists, many men fighting for women's right to vote, many straights working for the establishment of gay marriage, and many, many people fighting for the rights of fetuses. None of those people had any chance of ever transforming into who they were fighting for.
I'm not saying children get the raw end of the deal in a lot of cases. If you wanted to make a law about teen cell phone use without being discriminatory towards teens, just make it illegal for any driver who's had their license for less than two years to use a cell phone. Whether you get your license when you're 16 or 50, it applies equally to all inexperienced drivers.
Because unlike other high-risk groups, teens get into more accidents largely due to mere inexperience - The cure for which involves, of all things, doing the activity they suck at more, not less.
Yes, but can't society stop them from endangering us all, and restrict teen cell phone use until they gain that experience? Let them get good at driving first, then let them add distractions later.
Every time AARP shoots down a law requiring not revocation on age, but TESTING after a certain age to ensure safety proves you wrong.
All it proves is that the elderly turnout on election day dwarfs that of any other age group.
Teens just take the brunt of everybody's shit because they have no rights or money.
Teens are also one of a few groups that everyone has been a member of at one point. You'd think with all of us former teens, still scarred from society's relentless abuse, would rally around the cause of eliminating teenage oppression. But we don't. You know why? Most of us look back at how unbelievably stupid, reckless and irresponsible we were as teenagers. With age, comes some perspective.
It's just that claiming there's some kind of fairness on the issue is pretty myopic.
Yeah.. those stupid teens.. because adults never drive stupid.
Teens are a group of people who have a very high rate of accidents compared to the general population. Society has no problem restricting the driving privileges of other high risk groups: the elderly, the vision impaired, and the drunk. What's so different about singling out one more high-risk group and protecting ourselves from the collateral damage they are more likely to cause?
In fact, preventing them from learning by experience is likely to have the opposite effect of the one intended.
You're absolutely right. I just don't want your learning experience to end in a head-on crash with my car.
Cars are dangerous. Driving your car is probably the most dangerous thing you do every day (unless your a Marine or firefighter) for yourself and others. You really think society should just toss kids the keys and let them learn on their own?
How about facing the reality that bad things happen to stupid people doing stupid things, and teach kids to not be stupid?
I'm all for it. Stupid people should face the consequences of their actions. Teens who talk on their cells while driving are about as stupid as they come. Let 'em have it... I just don't want to be in the oncoming lane when they finally learn their lesson.
If third parties ran themselves with a half a lick of sense and as if they were actually serious, we wouldn't have two entrenched parties within a couple of election cycles. But so long as third parties continue to run nonviable candidates on nonviable platforms and only for the top offices, they'll continue to remain marginal.
Third parties in the US are far from ideally run. They do focus on top offices, leaving competitive, local races to the big two. And they do only run nonviable candidates. To be fair though, all the people with natural political ability run for the big two; they don't want to be unemployed. But third parties can't afford to moderate their platforms and enlarge the idealogical overlap with the majors; they'd lose too many voters.
But no, third parties are not, and have rarely been, a political force because of the electoral college. Third parties could get rather large turnout and still net not a single electoral vote. Look at Ross Perot. Not to mention the two-party-favorable laws that the state and federal governments have crafted in the last 200 years have only further entrenched their positions.
Its not the electoral college that's the problem.
Don't get me wrong. I don't think the electoral college, or the two-party system is a problem at all. Because the Republicans and Democrats are pretty similar (a lot more similar than the Libertarians and the Socialists), we can know that the direction of government isn't going to radically change overnight. And extreme ideas can be brought into the mainstream, through assimilation into the major parties' platforms, without having to accept the other, extreme but less popular, ideas that come along with a third party.
In other words, the presence of a trackable name or number cannot possibly influence whether the logic is correct or incorrect.
Logic is logic. It is exactly as valid when anonymous or not. But, most discussions involve matters of fact, as well as logic. And, unless you feel everyone should know everything, I'm going to have to take the writer's word for, at least, some point of fact. So, I have to come up with some way to rate the writer's credibility. And standing behind something and putting your name to it, improves your credibility in my eyes.
You know, over the years slashdot has become more and more hostile to anonymous speech, and after 11 years here, I'm just about ready to hang it up. If you all really don't want us -- even when we have logical and useful points to add to the discussion -- then I just give up.
No, no, no. There's no reason not to have anonymous posts on/.. I could set my preferences to mod them to oblivion if I wanted. All I'm saying is that an anonymous poster has to do better than an "onymous" one to get the same amount of respect.
I'm not bashing anonymous speech at all. I think it plays a valuable role in all sorts of situations: corporate and governmental whistle-blowing, or for controversial stands on issues. But, if something is posted anonymously, I tend to examine their facts more closely.
As a bonus, on the internet the signal-to-noise ratio for anonymous speech is significantly worse then for attributed speech. Filtering out the anonymous is a quick and easy way to improve content.
In conclusion, the only rational way to judge a person's words is by their meaning. If there happens to be a name signed to those words, it does not increase the value of those words in any logical way.
Yes. Yes it does increase the value of the speech. Signing your name to something shows that you think its important enough to stand up to criticism. Its like putting up a deposit when you make an offer on a house. It shows you are serious, and that others should take the issue seriously too.
Sigh... You're right. Which is probably why there are so few elaborate bank-jobs, cunning cons, and ridiculously over-the-top plots to blow up buses that fall below 55mph, in the news. I like movies better than real life. Sigh...
Just encrypt all of your crap, and don't have illegal stuff.
Amen. With all the practically unbreakable, freely available encryption solutions out there, I don't understand why any criminal who, even occasionally, touches a computer, doesn't use a generous amount of encryption. Encryption stymies any attempt at, after the fact, detection.
Anyway, I guess nobody complains when the dumb criminals make it easy.
IMHO, searching a computer is akin to searching someone during questioning.
If you're hinting that personal computer files may be protected by the fifth amendment, I think you're dead wrong. Even personal diaries can be subpoenaed. Personal computer files are no more protected than the contents of a file cabinet. I'd be interested to hear your reasoning behind your opinion.
Going through a computer willy-nilly on a fishing expedition: not fine.
I agree. Much as a traditional warrant for a home has a limited scope, so should computer warrants. If you're looking for fraudulent banking activity, you shouldn't be able to search out other, illegal, materials. But, some equivalent to "plain sight" has to hold. If you have a folder on your desktop named "KiddiePorn", and the cops are looking for stolen CC data, well... tough luck.
I think the idea of an automated computer program, tasked only to find appropriate data spelled out in the warrant, would be a boon to law enforcement. Computer crimes don't just take place in large cities with well funded computer forensics labs, but also in Podunkville, USA. It is simply unrealistic to require every small-town police department to keep up with the latest in computer forensics. Possessing a simple "crime detector" would allow the police to forward the computer to a real forensics lab if evidence exists. It would also save falsely accused computer owners from having to wait months or years to get their computers back.
What makes this a winner-takes-all system is that most, if not all, states have mandated that the electors vote for the president that the people voted for.
You're not wrong at all. Winner-take-all is not codified, but is an unintended consequence. The constitution only specifies that the state legislatures pick the electors. Its just tough to come up with a different system.
If the legislatures themselves picked the electors without consulting the people, we'd be in the same situation. The majority party in each state legislature would pick electors from the same party. Winner-take-all.
If the legislatures put the election of each elector to a general popular vote in each state, it would also yield the same results. As long as most people only vote for the electors who favor their preferred candidate, the entire state's slate of electors will vote as a bloc. Winner-take-all.
Just two states have implemented a non-winner-take-all approach, and that system is far from ideal. As long as the two party system is entrenched at the state level, the majority of states are unlikely to change the situation in favor of third parties. And as long as the President has to come from one of the two major parties, the state parties are unlikely to lose influence. Catch-22.
Slashdot Mirror
The question/task for the future is to figure out how to prevent this sort of abuse from happening again. It has been somewhat disturbing to see how easily your executive can disregard your highest laws with impunity only to have their actions repealed years later.
Actually, this is how we prevent it from happening again. And, to be fair, it wasn't the executive abusing power. He was given it by the congress.
Congress passes all kinds of laws which are later found to be unconstitutional by the court. The ultimate check, in our system, on the congress and president is the judiciary. How would you do it?
George Bush has proven that the American constitution has no teeth.
This case is an example of those teeth. Is it as timely as I would like? No. But I would rather have the correct decision after a well reasoned and thought out case, than a quick gut reflex (which is the role the congress usually plays). Assuming this decision is upheld on appeal, its now basically part of the constitution. I don't want that to be too easy or quick.
The US Mail service doesn't have a monopoly... You're free to start Theaveng's Letter Service tomorrow
No. No you're not. The USPS has a government enforced monopoly on the delivery of letters. If you started a service that attempted to compete, you'd be committing a crime. The monopoly is supposed to help protect the funding for the USPS's universal service obligation.
if the people believe the government acts in their interests, then there is social stability, and therefore happiness and prosperity.
You don't believe that this has largely been the case for the electoral college's 200+ year history? The US Constitution is the longest lasting national constitution for a reason. I'm not saying that it is perfect. But that fact does imply that the institutions it creates cannot be rejected out of hand.
Every institution created by the constitution is anti-democratic: Senate seats aren't based on population, the federal judiciary is unelected, a convoluted super-duper majority is needed to amend the constitution, the Bill of Rights specifies areas where the "will of the people" has no authority, even the concept of representative government is against true democracy. And yet, for all of those anti-democratic practices, our government is one of the most legitimate and stable in the world.
A true, direct democracy will self destruct. A government requires, not only the sanction of the majority, but the acceptance of the minority. You only have to look at the Oklahoma City bombing, Ireland over the last century, the former Yugoslavia, Muslim separatists in India, or the American civil war, to see what happens when the minority feels oppressed by the majority and that there is no democratic recourse. An unchecked majority will be seen as running roughshod over the rights of the minority.
you are flawed, because you don't trust the will of the people. the will of the people is infallible, because there is no way you can morally or intellectually stand apart from the people and judge them, because there is no morally or intellectually valid point of view that stands apart from the people
Okay. The constitution was designed to inhibit tyranny; whether that come in the form of an individual tyrant, or the tyranny of our neighbors. It set in place a system where individual freedom was protected wherever possible.
If you honestly believe that the will of the people is infallible, you either have no idea how the world works, or you are willfully ignoring the lessons of history. I just hope that in your utopia, you never find yourself on the wrong side of "the people".
do you get it that the way things work is wrong? or at least that that is the fucking subject matter?
I like the electoral college. Now, that being said, if the country was founded today, I don't think we would have come up with a similar system. But, here's why I like it.
-It emphasizes and protects the fundamental organizational structure of our republic; that of multiple levels of shared sovereignty. The constituency of the federal government is the states, not the people.
-It drastically reduces the chance of a nation-wide recount. Can you even imagine the 2000 election, if what was happening in Florida, took place all over the country? You would pretty much guarantee the election was decided by the Supreme Court or the House of Representatives.
-It supports the two party system. I know, I know. The two party system is a popular whipping boy. But it pretty much eliminates the possibility that a party will gain power that is 100% opposed to what 49% of the population believes. The two parties are similar enough that very few people are driven to extreme measures because their party lost.
-And finally, it has, more or less, reflected the will of the people. If the electoral college was usurping the will of the people in a serious way, I would be all for its abolishment. But it doesn't. George W. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000, but still got a higher percentage than Clinton did in '92. In neither case was it "majority rule".
I think the Electoral College is a flawed system. But, it has held up for over 200 years, through a civil war, the great depression, and even the 2000 election. I would need a lot of evidence that a better system exists, to believe that we should just scrap it and start from scratch.
the official record is al gore won the popular vote. please, show us contingencies and if-then conditions where this is not true. it doesn't mean anything
The popular vote doesn't matter. The president is not elected by the people. He's elected by the states, through their electors. By the rules of our political game, deciding the president by the popular vote makes as much sense as deciding a football game by most offensive yards gained.
If you want to change the rules, start with your state. Your state decides who will represent it in the electoral college, and can pick them however it wants. After enough states have switched to a proportional system, you're more likely to get support for changing the constitution to eliminate the undue influence of the smaller states.
we need to remove the electoral college, to prevent another a gw bush: gw bush was not the democratic will of the american people, according to factual record (not your suppositions).
You can't really say that. Both candidates ran campaigns which took into account the electoral college. Their strategies would have been vastly different with a popular vote. You wouldn't see both candidates ignore California and New York. Even though both are strongly Democratic, each contains more Republicans than Iowa.
Very true. If he doesn't know, he's pretty much screwed. I'm not saying that torture is the end-all-be-all of interrogation techniques, but the common misconception that torture is useless, is harmful to the debate. There are so many better arguments against torture.
Most individuals could think of a situation where they would make the decision to torture, even if the results may possibly be false. The strongest arguments against torture do not deny that fact. They rest on the dangers of legitimizing and institutionalizing an action so repugnant to the civilized character.
Umm.... how about pretty much inquisition trial that included torture?
I don't think he's talking about torture to obtain a confession, but rather torture to obtain actionable information. I would imagine an interrogation could be set up so that the subject is asked questions with only concrete and verifiable answers. The subject could be threatened with even more torture for non-compliance or misinformation. It would then be in his best interest to tell the truth as soon as possible.
Which must be why foreign governments are considering bailing out their automakers too, right?
Not the Japanese, which are the owners of the vast majority of transplant factories here in the USA. They make cars here; they sell cars here; and, best of all, they make money and have no need for a bailout.
Note also that you don't convert an SUV plant to making hybrids in "weeks", as you so blithely assert.
Yes. Yes they do. The Japanese designed their plants, from the beginning, to quickly and efficiently re-tool. While the change from SUV to hybrid is rather large, some of these plants can switch between more similar models overnight. Their factories, their supply chain, and their financing structure are designed for agility. Its a lesson the big three never learned.
But it's not the automakers' fault they built SUV's, so much as the customers' demand for SUV's.
No, the automakers were rewarded for producing what the consumer wanted. But they didn't really make any money when they were selling lots of (high-margin) SUVs. The Japanese automakers make money, as well as cars. When the current economic crisis hit, they were able to change and adapt, financed by the profit they earned in the fat years. It is GM's fault that they gave no thought to the future. I'm sure they assumed they were "too big to fail" and would get bailed out like in '79. For the same reason Fannie and Freddie failed, and were saved (implicit government backing, causing excess risk taking), GM has failed to take responsibility for its economic future and comes to the government with its hand out.
you mean the century of case law that says we the people have the right to time-shift, space-shift, and format-shift content we buy?
Those rights aren't restricted by copyright. You're correct. But the content distributors are perfectly free to put any DRM they want on the media they sell you. Just because you can doesn't mean they have to make it easy for you. (That's what the nice people on The Pirate Bay are for.)
Also, them changing the system and people needing to figure out which cup they hid the pea under doesn't mean it "worked"
Yes. Yes it does. I think the real genius behind BD+ is that each disc can contain different, newer copy protection. Each time one generation is broken, they can simply release all newer releases with a stronger version. They didn't have to invent a system which had to last for the life of the format. They only have to stay one step ahead of the crackers.
DRM doesn't work. It never did work, it probably never will work.
I'm pretty sure this story is about how DRM does work. It keeps people from copying the movie in full HD resolution, without getting in the way of 90% of consumers, and stays within the bounds of the law. That's pretty much the definition of successful DRM, from the industry's perspective. Until there is a crack available, BD+ is the current and best example of working DRM.
You know what would change the movie company attitudes about DRM? Massive public outrage, something that just hasn't happened yet for movies (for games, on the other hand, it has, somewhat). Most people never run up against the limitations imposed by DRM. I think we have to wait until people become more accustomed to the potential of ubiquitous media sharing before they care widely about movie DRM.
Yeah, its pretty much like that. If I were one of the BD+ developers, I'd be pretty proud of the fact that the DRM-hackers thought that RSA was most vulnerable part of my DRM scheme.
But seriously, if real advances are made in integer factorization because of attempts to crack BD+, I'm going to laugh my ass off.
You can't compare vision impaired and drunken drivers to teenagers, it's not the same thing. Two are a state a person can be in, and teenagers are a group of people.
Being a teenager was a state I was in for quite a few years. Your argument would be valid, if I was just picking people at random and grouping them together. Teenagers are a group of people, all of them sharing the same state. I'm not sure why I can't group together people whose physical or mental differences (however temporary or self-imposed those may be) make them higher risk drivers.
You don't screw over multiple people because many(most?) of them are not great at something. Get back under your bridge.
I'm pretty sure we do it all the time: young people can't vote because we believe they would not make rational and informed decisions, young people can't drink because we don't think they are responsible enough, unlicensed doctors can't practice because we don't think they have the knowledge to be safe and effective. Each of those cases has exceptions, people who, if given a chance, would use their power wisely. But we screw all of them over. I'm not saying that its right in every case, only that this cell phone thing is hardly a one-off problem.
Besides, many states have already implemented a graduated license system, where minors have more restrictions placed on their driving: no driving after a certain time, limits on the number of passengers, etc. I don't see why cell phone use couldn't be added to those laws.
Racial profiling and age profiling are equally dirty games to play.
That's actually a really good point. Theoretically they both stand on the same moral ground. But age profiling permeates almost every aspect of our society. We prohibit those under 16 from driving, even though some may be excellent drivers. We prohibit those under 18 from voting, even though many posses the capability to make rational political decisions. Under 21, can't drink. All of those choices are made based simply on age, not the individual circumstances or abilities. But I don't think its possible to make any of those choices on an individual basis for each person. Where do we draw the line? I don't know.
The other side of your point here is that none of us ever have to worry about being teenagers ever again. The level of personal risk is a *much* more salient factor for most people, I suspect, and in this case, it's zero.
If real, widespread injustice was being perpetrated, on a subset of society as numerous as teens, there would be more protest even from older people. There were many white abolitionists, many men fighting for women's right to vote, many straights working for the establishment of gay marriage, and many, many people fighting for the rights of fetuses. None of those people had any chance of ever transforming into who they were fighting for.
I'm not saying children get the raw end of the deal in a lot of cases. If you wanted to make a law about teen cell phone use without being discriminatory towards teens, just make it illegal for any driver who's had their license for less than two years to use a cell phone. Whether you get your license when you're 16 or 50, it applies equally to all inexperienced drivers.
Because unlike other high-risk groups, teens get into more accidents largely due to mere inexperience - The cure for which involves, of all things, doing the activity they suck at more, not less.
Yes, but can't society stop them from endangering us all, and restrict teen cell phone use until they gain that experience? Let them get good at driving first, then let them add distractions later.
Every time AARP shoots down a law requiring not revocation on age, but TESTING after a certain age to ensure safety proves you wrong.
All it proves is that the elderly turnout on election day dwarfs that of any other age group.
Teens just take the brunt of everybody's shit because they have no rights or money.
Teens are also one of a few groups that everyone has been a member of at one point. You'd think with all of us former teens, still scarred from society's relentless abuse, would rally around the cause of eliminating teenage oppression. But we don't. You know why? Most of us look back at how unbelievably stupid, reckless and irresponsible we were as teenagers. With age, comes some perspective.
It's just that claiming there's some kind of fairness on the issue is pretty myopic.
I never said it was fair, only justified.
Yeah.. those stupid teens.. because adults never drive stupid.
Teens are a group of people who have a very high rate of accidents compared to the general population. Society has no problem restricting the driving privileges of other high risk groups: the elderly, the vision impaired, and the drunk. What's so different about singling out one more high-risk group and protecting ourselves from the collateral damage they are more likely to cause?
In fact, preventing them from learning by experience is likely to have the opposite effect of the one intended.
You're absolutely right. I just don't want your learning experience to end in a head-on crash with my car.
Cars are dangerous. Driving your car is probably the most dangerous thing you do every day (unless your a Marine or firefighter) for yourself and others. You really think society should just toss kids the keys and let them learn on their own?
How about facing the reality that bad things happen to stupid people doing stupid things, and teach kids to not be stupid?
I'm all for it. Stupid people should face the consequences of their actions. Teens who talk on their cells while driving are about as stupid as they come. Let 'em have it... I just don't want to be in the oncoming lane when they finally learn their lesson.
If third parties ran themselves with a half a lick of sense and as if they were actually serious, we wouldn't have two entrenched parties within a couple of election cycles. But so long as third parties continue to run nonviable candidates on nonviable platforms and only for the top offices, they'll continue to remain marginal.
Third parties in the US are far from ideally run. They do focus on top offices, leaving competitive, local races to the big two. And they do only run nonviable candidates. To be fair though, all the people with natural political ability run for the big two; they don't want to be unemployed. But third parties can't afford to moderate their platforms and enlarge the idealogical overlap with the majors; they'd lose too many voters.
But no, third parties are not, and have rarely been, a political force because of the electoral college. Third parties could get rather large turnout and still net not a single electoral vote. Look at Ross Perot. Not to mention the two-party-favorable laws that the state and federal governments have crafted in the last 200 years have only further entrenched their positions.
Its not the electoral college that's the problem.
Don't get me wrong. I don't think the electoral college, or the two-party system is a problem at all. Because the Republicans and Democrats are pretty similar (a lot more similar than the Libertarians and the Socialists), we can know that the direction of government isn't going to radically change overnight. And extreme ideas can be brought into the mainstream, through assimilation into the major parties' platforms, without having to accept the other, extreme but less popular, ideas that come along with a third party.
In other words, the presence of a trackable name or number cannot possibly influence whether the logic is correct or incorrect.
Logic is logic. It is exactly as valid when anonymous or not. But, most discussions involve matters of fact, as well as logic. And, unless you feel everyone should know everything, I'm going to have to take the writer's word for, at least, some point of fact. So, I have to come up with some way to rate the writer's credibility. And standing behind something and putting your name to it, improves your credibility in my eyes.
You know, over the years slashdot has become more and more hostile to anonymous speech, and after 11 years here, I'm just about ready to hang it up. If you all really don't want us -- even when we have logical and useful points to add to the discussion -- then I just give up.
No, no, no. There's no reason not to have anonymous posts on /.. I could set my preferences to mod them to oblivion if I wanted. All I'm saying is that an anonymous poster has to do better than an "onymous" one to get the same amount of respect.
I'm not bashing anonymous speech at all. I think it plays a valuable role in all sorts of situations: corporate and governmental whistle-blowing, or for controversial stands on issues. But, if something is posted anonymously, I tend to examine their facts more closely.
As a bonus, on the internet the signal-to-noise ratio for anonymous speech is significantly worse then for attributed speech. Filtering out the anonymous is a quick and easy way to improve content.
In conclusion, the only rational way to judge a person's words is by their meaning. If there happens to be a name signed to those words, it does not increase the value of those words in any logical way.
Yes. Yes it does increase the value of the speech. Signing your name to something shows that you think its important enough to stand up to criticism. Its like putting up a deposit when you make an offer on a house. It shows you are serious, and that others should take the issue seriously too.
Because most criminals are idiots to begin with.
Sigh... You're right. Which is probably why there are so few elaborate bank-jobs, cunning cons, and ridiculously over-the-top plots to blow up buses that fall below 55mph, in the news. I like movies better than real life. Sigh...
Just encrypt all of your crap, and don't have illegal stuff.
Amen. With all the practically unbreakable, freely available encryption solutions out there, I don't understand why any criminal who, even occasionally, touches a computer, doesn't use a generous amount of encryption. Encryption stymies any attempt at, after the fact, detection.
Anyway, I guess nobody complains when the dumb criminals make it easy.
IMHO, searching a computer is akin to searching someone during questioning.
If you're hinting that personal computer files may be protected by the fifth amendment, I think you're dead wrong. Even personal diaries can be subpoenaed. Personal computer files are no more protected than the contents of a file cabinet. I'd be interested to hear your reasoning behind your opinion.
Going through a computer willy-nilly on a fishing expedition: not fine.
I agree. Much as a traditional warrant for a home has a limited scope, so should computer warrants. If you're looking for fraudulent banking activity, you shouldn't be able to search out other, illegal, materials. But, some equivalent to "plain sight" has to hold. If you have a folder on your desktop named "KiddiePorn", and the cops are looking for stolen CC data, well... tough luck.
I think the idea of an automated computer program, tasked only to find appropriate data spelled out in the warrant, would be a boon to law enforcement. Computer crimes don't just take place in large cities with well funded computer forensics labs, but also in Podunkville, USA. It is simply unrealistic to require every small-town police department to keep up with the latest in computer forensics. Possessing a simple "crime detector" would allow the police to forward the computer to a real forensics lab if evidence exists. It would also save falsely accused computer owners from having to wait months or years to get their computers back.
What makes this a winner-takes-all system is that most, if not all, states have mandated that the electors vote for the president that the people voted for.
You're not wrong at all. Winner-take-all is not codified, but is an unintended consequence. The constitution only specifies that the state legislatures pick the electors. Its just tough to come up with a different system.
If the legislatures themselves picked the electors without consulting the people, we'd be in the same situation. The majority party in each state legislature would pick electors from the same party. Winner-take-all.
If the legislatures put the election of each elector to a general popular vote in each state, it would also yield the same results. As long as most people only vote for the electors who favor their preferred candidate, the entire state's slate of electors will vote as a bloc. Winner-take-all.
Just two states have implemented a non-winner-take-all approach, and that system is far from ideal. As long as the two party system is entrenched at the state level, the majority of states are unlikely to change the situation in favor of third parties. And as long as the President has to come from one of the two major parties, the state parties are unlikely to lose influence. Catch-22.