I, too, encrypt my lightbulb emissions using the CUR-tain algorithm. There is some shadow analysis that can break it, but repeated application of the algorithm (often referred to as Triple CUR or 3CUR) will often foil that.
Efficiency doesn't matter much in a robbery - reliability does. Sure, you can get an expectation that a dozen houses are empty from sniffing, but an expectation doesn't keep you out of jail. Last time I was out sick from work, I spent the day in my living room reading a book, with no TV or additional lights on. You'll still need to do some plain old watching to pick targets. All you'd gain with the meters' transmissions is knowing that most folks will use less electricity during the day.
I can't recall ever hearing about a string of thefts in more than two houses at a time. If you're getting away with one robbery free and clear, why risk getting caught at the second one with all the loot from the first? That's just asking for more jail time.
Besides it costs nothing to use public key encryption on these. There is no reason why these should not be encrypted.
I'm going to guess you don't do any IT management. There's always a cost. In this case, the decryption keys for each device must be managed properly to maintain any actual security.
Encrypting the transmission is certainly pretty simple, but decrypting it is hard. More specifically, managing the decryption is hard. Who gets the decryption keys? Do they go to every meter-reading vehicle, which is the easiest to deploy (and easiest to have stolen by a disgruntled meter reader)? Do they stay in a central location that each vehicle reports back to, delaying rechecks of errors? Are the vehicles expected to remain in constant communication with the central location, which may be impossible in some areas?
The hassle of managing encryption far outweighs the risk posed by unencrypted transmission.
Or a thief could just go jogging around the block for a while in the morning.
Reconnaissance on a big public target like a house is trivially easy, even without exploiting new technology, but let's all go ahead and panic now that it's been brought to our attention.
So let me get this straight... if somebody wants to know when you're home, they're going to run out and buy a radio and learn to use it, then sniff your meter's transmissions, then analyse them for periodic components, then correlate that with known patterns... rather than just waiting to watch you leave?
So the place ( the internet ) we had for ourselves, as a true nearly-free place, is gone -- and ruled by lawyers and legalese. THAT is my point.
The Internet is not a place, and never was. It is, and always has been, a network of computing devices. When those devices are operated by an entity that is subject to a nation's laws, they are required to comply with those laws, and this has always been the case.
While the culture of Internet users has long enjoyed its "Wild West" anarchy, the eventual expansion of civilization and enforcement will not be stopped, because it comes with the order and security that people like so much.
Someday, people will make movies about the Internet as we now make westerns - where the faceless vigilante Anonymous fights against the ever-advancing government, and the pirate trades his wares in the smoky BBS and BitTorrent, while the evil baron Industry forces people to work in the data mines under the oppression of DRM slavery. Our hero, the lone onion router, drifts through the town, redirecting users' traffic and setting up an underground wealth redistribution so they can briefly live free from Industry's influence, and in doing so he wins the heart of the naive and innocent User.
...but that's only because the competitors are demonstrably inferior.
No, really... I have a demonstration all ready to explain how the NT kernel's scheduler is 27% less efficient than the Completely Fair Scheduler (under a particular workload, with particular hardware, during a particular phase of the moon)! This means that Windows users are losing several milliseconds every day because of their scheduler's inadequacy. I've done some research into the amount of multitasking that Windows users do, and I've concluded that Windows is costing global industry several whole hours of productivity every year! That's tens of dollars wasted! That's enough to fund a whole pizza party for the entirety of Mrs. Johnson's 3rd-grade class!
Disclaimer: This is sarcasm. Slashdot users need this disclaimer, too.
What was the last thing YOU did that was "equally bad" as the shitshow that is PayPal?
For starters, this morning, on my way to work, I took a place in line at an exit ramp, delaying and irritating a few hundred other cars slightly. I do that every morning. Under a very conservative estimate of only one hundred other people irritated daily, I've managed to annoy about 10% of my city (about 36,000 people total) slightly in a year. For comparison, how many people are irritated with PayPal, and how annoyed are they? How many years of traffic disruptions does it take to equal one PayPal?
99% of individuals will never have the opportunity to do anything "equally bad" as a multinational corporation.
Almost everyone is evil, in some small part. Yes, there are some that commit their trespasses all at once in heinous acts of negligence, apathy, or malevolence, but most "evil" effects come from individuals doing things they don't think are wrong. Small offenses like bringing home pens from work or delaying others' commute add up to a far greater total of distress in the world.
Your kind of false equivalence is a weak attempt to minimize the negative effects of corporations on the citizenry.
There is no false equivalence here. I am absolutely certain that my actions and inactions have resulted in somebody's death. I do hope that my death toll hasn't hit the 10,000 of the Bhopal disaster, but I can't be sure. I could indirectly be a homicidal maniac and not know it.
Let's suppose though, for argument's sake, that I am a pristine pinnacle of innocence, never having harmed anyone, directly or not. Do I now magically have the right to judge others and deem them worthy of attack? Am I qualified to assert that a civilian killed in a war is so important that anyone who stops encouraging the endless retelling of their story is to be condemned to eternal harassment, even if their support was withdrawn under duress? After all, that's the train of thought that made MasterCard a target for withdrawing support of WikiLeaks.
Anonymous does not seek justice. Anonymous is a vigilante group, attacking anyone for any perceived wrong, without the need or desire to dole out appropriate punishments to fit the crimes. Yes, multinational corporations do bad things. So do national corporations, local small businesses, nonprofit charities, religions, and individuals. That does not excuse anyone from causing harm to anyone else.
Having no leadership, no structure, and no goal (beyond that afforded by the community politics of certain outspoken folks), Anonymous is free to rationalize anything however they like. There is no need for logic or restraint. In an orgy of solidarity, the "with us or against us" mentality reigns supreme. PayPal, MasterCard, government, and anybody else who opposes their attacks are just added to the list of targets.
To each individual, the notion that they could be doing more harm than good is offensive. They've already passed judgement on their enemies, and deemed them evil, and anybody who disagrees must be evil as well. Sure, PayPal, Symantec, and every other company have done some bad things in their history, and should not be lightly forgiven. However, it is important to remember that every individual has also done equally bad things, and should not be the sole judge and executioner of any person, corporation, idea, or organization.
Not really a big distinction. Fax lines can be tapped just as easily as email. What's important is that somewhere in the voting process, an official will see the person's name (or phone number) and could see how they voted, too. For election purposes, that means the ballot isn't secret, so the waiver is necessary.
Similarly, in posting your comment, you agreed to waive the exclusivity of your right to copy your comment, so Slashdot (and its parent company) can function. Don't like giving up your rights? Go somewhere else to post your comment, go to a physical polling location, or mail in your ballot as you would if this email allowance weren't made.
The problem is that secure computerized voting is like cryptography (and not just because the two are related)... Straightforward in theory, but every manufacturer thinks they've got to make their own implementation of the encryption/signing/validation algorithms, and every ignorant administrator is swayed by the marketing to think that "proprietary" means "secure".
Even if we accept the idealistic worldview that the manufacturers want a fair election, there's no commercial sense in making a machine that's 100% open and verifiable, because that means that everybody else can copy the machine easily. We won't see a trustworthy computerized election any time soon.
I was under the impression that a fuel supply was a standard part of the contingency plan for any data center.
I recently visited a new data center opening near me. The operator had contracts with several fuel suppliers that in the event of a power outage, the first one to get a full tank truck through their front gate got paid, and would keep getting paid for each additional truck that was needed. Any latecomers would be turned away, effectively making it an exclusive contract upon arrival.
Shawnee County District Judge Steven Ebberts last week denied a request by The Topeka Capital-Journal to quash a subpoena seeking the name, address and Internet Protocol address of a poster who goes by the pseudonym “BePrepared.”
Stovall’s attorney, Jonathan Phelps... filed a motion seeking a new trial, saying the online posting constitutes juror misconduct and hindered Stovall’s right to a fair trial.
Judge Ebberts said the poster’s identity was relevant to an investigation of criminal misconduct during the trial. He wrote that the prosecutor’s office has claimed that without the information, “a miscarriage of justice” would result.
So, as I understand it, this is what's happened: Stovall was found guilty of one charge, but the comment was posted, and Stovall's attorney thinks it was a juror. The prosecutor thinks that if it is a juror, that's a crime in itself (violating due process), so they both want to know who BePrepared is, and the prosecutor (effectively being an attorney for the court itself) got a subpoena for the poster's name. The newspaper asked to quash the subpoena, but the judge refused, so they now have to give up the name of the poster. If it is a juror, the guy gets a new trial, as his lawyer wants. If not, the trial proceeds as normal with the one charge standing.
If there's any fishing expedition, it comes from Stovall's own attorney. Double jeopardy doesn't apply: the accused doesn't get a free pass because somebody screwed with their due process. They just go through due process again.
In this case, the giver is simply handing over a fruit. There is no indication of what the receiver is expected to do with it, whether it will be expected back, or whether it even is actually an edible orange. For all the receiver knows, taking the orange means he's just entered a common-law marriage with the giver's niece, mother, and cat.
“Know all persons by these present that I hereby give, grant, release, convey, transfer and quitclaim all my right, title, interest, benefit and use whatsoever in, or and concerning this chattel, otherwise known as an orange, or citrus aurantium, together with all the appurtenances thereto of skin, pulp, pip, rind, seeds and juice to have and to hold the said orange, for his own use and behoof, to himself and his heirs, in fee simple forever, free from all liens, encumbrances, easements, limitations, restraints or conditions whatsoever, any and all prior deeds, transfer, or other documents whatsoever, now or anywhere made to the contrary notwithstanding, with full power to bite, cut, suck or otherwise eat the said orange or to give away the same, with or without its skin, pulp, pip, rind, seeds or juice.”
Clarity at last! Let's break this down a bit...
Know all persons by these present
This is a public deal, and everybody watching is expected to know about it.
I hereby give, grant, release, convey, transfer and quitclaim all my right, title, interest, benefit and use whatsoever in, or and concerning this chattel
This is a final deal. There is no expectation (of any of several kinds) that the orange will be returned or that it's some kind of loan.
otherwise known as an orange, or citrus aurantium, together with all the appurtenances thereto of skin, pulp, pip, rind, seeds and juice
Specifically, it is an orange of one particular species, and all its parts. Here we can see that the receiver is getting everything, so the giver can't later say "oh, you should have given me those seeds; they were still mine!" and accuse the receiver of theft.
to have and to hold the said orange, for his own use and behoof, to himself and his heirs,
Now we know that the receiver will get this orange for himself, and isn't expected to pass it somewhere else.
in fee simple forever, free from all liens, encumbrances, easements, limitations, restraints or conditions whatsoever, any and all prior deeds, transfer, or other documents whatsoever, now or anywhere made to the contrary notwithstanding,
We now also know who else is looking for that orange: nobody. Once the receiver gets the orange, he owns it outright (in fee simple), and nobody else has a claim to it, regardless of what they might think (though if the orange was the collateral on a loan, the giver might now be in breach of that loan's contract.
with full power to bite, cut, suck or otherwise eat the said orange or to give away the same, with or without its skin, pulp, pip, rind, seeds or juice.”
And lastly, we know what the receiver is expected to do with the orange: bite, cut, suck, or eat, or give it away. Note that the receiver is not expected to throw the fruit at an elected official or bad actor (or both, as the case may be). Doing so could be argued as a breach of contract in court, freeing the giver from any liability, because he didn't give the receiver permission to use the fruit as a projectile (though he didn't exclude it, either, so it's a good point for debate).
This is so much more precise! Look at all the legal pitfalls we've avoided by using the lawyer's nuanced text!
For the record, I go to a game night run by a lawyer. The words he uses are "Beer's in the fridge; help yourself."
If they do all that well, then the attentive student will adopt a particular perspective
Or maybe not. Again you're defining how well the teacher teaches by what perspective the student develops, under the assumption that students must believe what they're properly taught. Reality is, no matter how well a teacher teaches, some students will inject their own meanings into the class, to come out with a different perspective. There's a few dozen biases in the way, and no class (or classes) will overcome them all. It is entirely possible that even with a full understanding of the mechanics of life, the student will still believe that the hand of God comes down at conception and blesses the zygote with a soul that eventually becomes the sentience of the person.
just as a well instructed astronomy class will cause students to adopt the heliocentric perspective.
And yet, the heliocentric perspective isn't correct in anything but the broadest sense. The Sun isn't the center of the universe, or our galaxy, or even our solar system. Of course it took two centuries to find that out, but that was still two centuries ago.
How much acknowledgement of fallibility should astronomers offer when they discuss Ptolemy?
Quite a lot. They should realize that Ptolemy's ideas were far better than his predecessors, but still incorrect, and similarly their own ideas may only be a better form of wrong.
I am always on the lookout for alternative perspectives that can explain the world as it is. Anti-abortionists have provided none.
On the contrary, they have provided the explanation that God plans for all people, including those in all stages of development. You just reject that out of hand because it's not your preferred explanation. It's not mine either, but I cannot prove them wrong. After all, the burden of proof lies with the one trying to change the other's mind. Your perfect biology class must not only teach biology, but disprove the preexisting theories of the students.
All very true. I did not mean to imply that prose or poetry would translate directly into a career as a lawyer, but rather that I feel schools simply don't focus enough on difficult works (and I generally find older works to have more difficult material). The goal in a literature class is to explore the deeper meanings and interpretations of literature. For that purpose, many modern works are fine (though I'm partial to science fiction, myself).
What I bemoan is that there is never a class emphasizing reading comprehension as a skill, where students learn to dissect written passages into the parts relevant to the question at hand, where the logical differences between "and" and "or" are explored (with regards to their use in language), and the placement of a comma makes all the difference in the world.
I had intended to include a mention of Shakespeare in my post, complaining about the approach often used to teach it. In the opening of Romeo and Juliet, for example, one character makes a rude gesture to another, but is careful in his phrasing to stay legal (for a while). While a modern literature class would delve into the culture of dueling and family honor, the breakdown of the careful phrasing is overlooked.
Perhaps better would be to complain about the loss of Latin classes. They focused more on grammar, as I recall.
It's not "close to" a No True Scotsman fallacy. It is a No True Scotsman fallacy. You're evaluating whether a biology class is really a class or not based on the unrelated attribute of whether the students adopt a particular perspective afterward.
You're also defining "thinking critically" as "thinking like Hatta". There is no acknowledgement that you may me mistaken - no falsifiability, as all science must have. You're glossing over the logical leaps, and emphasizing your particular conclusion as being the only right one. This is the point of my original comment: You're assuming your perspective is the only right one.
why do I not find any tools for local government? Is that too difficult and expansive to tackle?
Having worked on an election-information site, I can tell you definitively: yes.
Every state chooses its own process for elections, and often each municipality can change that process as they see fit. There is no requirement that information about the ballots be made available in digital form. There is no requirement that any particular format be used. In some places, the only description of what's on the ballot is a small notice in the local weekly newspaper, and the ballot itself. Even a list of candidates is hard to get for some technology-opposing areas.
When I worked on my particular election site, we had eight people on staff, and five of them were working full-time collecting information from newspapers, government agencies, and sometimes phone calls to the candidates themselves.
This election has been devoid of any discussion of any issues of importance to me.
FTFY
The issues that are being discussed in this election are the issues people (outside Slashdot) are talking about... taxes, abortions, debt, and the like. While we nerds are concerned about the flaws of deadly machines, statistical disparities in the justice system, and the disconnect between security theory and security theater, we are in the minority. Other people are concerned about silly things like killing babies, whether they'll be able to retire, and what country hates us the most.
A privacy policy shouldn't just be a checkbox on a compliance procedure. Like any policy, it should only be the result of careful consideration. Yes, eventually many developers will come to broadly the same conclusions, but the process of writing (and verifying) the policy conveys the importance it should have. The privacy policy is effectively a promise of what your app will or won't do, and if that promise is made just to save time, it likely won't mean anything to the person making it.
Sure, there could be a Creative Commons-like system, where developers pick and choose what options they include. My concern is that by having an easy-to-make policy, the policy is also easy to forget. When a later version adds a new feature or advertisements, how likely is it that the long-forgotten privacy policy will be updated to match? If a legally-bulletproof blanket-permission policy can be made cheaply and easily, why not just apply that to all apps, regardless of the actual capabilities of the program?
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I, too, encrypt my lightbulb emissions using the CUR-tain algorithm. There is some shadow analysis that can break it, but repeated application of the algorithm (often referred to as Triple CUR or 3CUR) will often foil that.
Efficiency doesn't matter much in a robbery - reliability does. Sure, you can get an expectation that a dozen houses are empty from sniffing, but an expectation doesn't keep you out of jail. Last time I was out sick from work, I spent the day in my living room reading a book, with no TV or additional lights on. You'll still need to do some plain old watching to pick targets. All you'd gain with the meters' transmissions is knowing that most folks will use less electricity during the day.
I can't recall ever hearing about a string of thefts in more than two houses at a time. If you're getting away with one robbery free and clear, why risk getting caught at the second one with all the loot from the first? That's just asking for more jail time.
Besides it costs nothing to use public key encryption on these. There is no reason why these should not be encrypted.
I'm going to guess you don't do any IT management. There's always a cost. In this case, the decryption keys for each device must be managed properly to maintain any actual security.
Encrypting the transmission is certainly pretty simple, but decrypting it is hard. More specifically, managing the decryption is hard. Who gets the decryption keys? Do they go to every meter-reading vehicle, which is the easiest to deploy (and easiest to have stolen by a disgruntled meter reader)? Do they stay in a central location that each vehicle reports back to, delaying rechecks of errors? Are the vehicles expected to remain in constant communication with the central location, which may be impossible in some areas?
The hassle of managing encryption far outweighs the risk posed by unencrypted transmission.
Or a thief could just go jogging around the block for a while in the morning.
Reconnaissance on a big public target like a house is trivially easy, even without exploiting new technology, but let's all go ahead and panic now that it's been brought to our attention.
So let me get this straight... if somebody wants to know when you're home, they're going to run out and buy a radio and learn to use it, then sniff your meter's transmissions, then analyse them for periodic components, then correlate that with known patterns... rather than just waiting to watch you leave?
So the place ( the internet ) we had for ourselves, as a true nearly-free place, is gone -- and ruled by lawyers and legalese. THAT is my point.
The Internet is not a place, and never was. It is, and always has been, a network of computing devices. When those devices are operated by an entity that is subject to a nation's laws, they are required to comply with those laws, and this has always been the case.
While the culture of Internet users has long enjoyed its "Wild West" anarchy, the eventual expansion of civilization and enforcement will not be stopped, because it comes with the order and security that people like so much.
Someday, people will make movies about the Internet as we now make westerns - where the faceless vigilante Anonymous fights against the ever-advancing government, and the pirate trades his wares in the smoky BBS and BitTorrent, while the evil baron Industry forces people to work in the data mines under the oppression of DRM slavery. Our hero, the lone onion router, drifts through the town, redirecting users' traffic and setting up an underground wealth redistribution so they can briefly live free from Industry's influence, and in doing so he wins the heart of the naive and innocent User.
...but that's only because the competitors are demonstrably inferior.
No, really... I have a demonstration all ready to explain how the NT kernel's scheduler is 27% less efficient than the Completely Fair Scheduler (under a particular workload, with particular hardware, during a particular phase of the moon)! This means that Windows users are losing several milliseconds every day because of their scheduler's inadequacy. I've done some research into the amount of multitasking that Windows users do, and I've concluded that Windows is costing global industry several whole hours of productivity every year! That's tens of dollars wasted! That's enough to fund a whole pizza party for the entirety of Mrs. Johnson's 3rd-grade class!
Disclaimer: This is sarcasm. Slashdot users need this disclaimer, too.
What was the last thing YOU did that was "equally bad" as the shitshow that is PayPal?
For starters, this morning, on my way to work, I took a place in line at an exit ramp, delaying and irritating a few hundred other cars slightly. I do that every morning. Under a very conservative estimate of only one hundred other people irritated daily, I've managed to annoy about 10% of my city (about 36,000 people total) slightly in a year. For comparison, how many people are irritated with PayPal, and how annoyed are they? How many years of traffic disruptions does it take to equal one PayPal?
99% of individuals will never have the opportunity to do anything "equally bad" as a multinational corporation.
Almost everyone is evil, in some small part. Yes, there are some that commit their trespasses all at once in heinous acts of negligence, apathy, or malevolence, but most "evil" effects come from individuals doing things they don't think are wrong. Small offenses like bringing home pens from work or delaying others' commute add up to a far greater total of distress in the world.
Your kind of false equivalence is a weak attempt to minimize the negative effects of corporations on the citizenry.
There is no false equivalence here. I am absolutely certain that my actions and inactions have resulted in somebody's death. I do hope that my death toll hasn't hit the 10,000 of the Bhopal disaster, but I can't be sure. I could indirectly be a homicidal maniac and not know it.
Let's suppose though, for argument's sake, that I am a pristine pinnacle of innocence, never having harmed anyone, directly or not. Do I now magically have the right to judge others and deem them worthy of attack? Am I qualified to assert that a civilian killed in a war is so important that anyone who stops encouraging the endless retelling of their story is to be condemned to eternal harassment, even if their support was withdrawn under duress? After all, that's the train of thought that made MasterCard a target for withdrawing support of WikiLeaks.
Anonymous does not seek justice. Anonymous is a vigilante group, attacking anyone for any perceived wrong, without the need or desire to dole out appropriate punishments to fit the crimes. Yes, multinational corporations do bad things. So do national corporations, local small businesses, nonprofit charities, religions, and individuals. That does not excuse anyone from causing harm to anyone else.
Having no leadership, no structure, and no goal (beyond that afforded by the community politics of certain outspoken folks), Anonymous is free to rationalize anything however they like. There is no need for logic or restraint. In an orgy of solidarity, the "with us or against us" mentality reigns supreme. PayPal, MasterCard, government, and anybody else who opposes their attacks are just added to the list of targets.
To each individual, the notion that they could be doing more harm than good is offensive. They've already passed judgement on their enemies, and deemed them evil, and anybody who disagrees must be evil as well. Sure, PayPal, Symantec, and every other company have done some bad things in their history, and should not be lightly forgiven. However, it is important to remember that every individual has also done equally bad things, and should not be the sole judge and executioner of any person, corporation, idea, or organization.
Not really a big distinction. Fax lines can be tapped just as easily as email. What's important is that somewhere in the voting process, an official will see the person's name (or phone number) and could see how they voted, too. For election purposes, that means the ballot isn't secret, so the waiver is necessary.
Similarly, in posting your comment, you agreed to waive the exclusivity of your right to copy your comment, so Slashdot (and its parent company) can function. Don't like giving up your rights? Go somewhere else to post your comment, go to a physical polling location, or mail in your ballot as you would if this email allowance weren't made.
The problem is that secure computerized voting is like cryptography (and not just because the two are related)... Straightforward in theory, but every manufacturer thinks they've got to make their own implementation of the encryption/signing/validation algorithms, and every ignorant administrator is swayed by the marketing to think that "proprietary" means "secure".
Even if we accept the idealistic worldview that the manufacturers want a fair election, there's no commercial sense in making a machine that's 100% open and verifiable, because that means that everybody else can copy the machine easily. We won't see a trustworthy computerized election any time soon.
FWIW, they did have some nice big tanks on-site, too, that they said were full.
I was under the impression that a fuel supply was a standard part of the contingency plan for any data center.
I recently visited a new data center opening near me. The operator had contracts with several fuel suppliers that in the event of a power outage, the first one to get a full tank truck through their front gate got paid, and would keep getting paid for each additional truck that was needed. Any latecomers would be turned away, effectively making it an exclusive contract upon arrival.
Because of course it's just beyond belief that someone in the justice system could actually want justice to be properly served... Right.
From TFA:
Shawnee County District Judge Steven Ebberts last week denied a request by The Topeka Capital-Journal to quash a subpoena seeking the name, address and Internet Protocol address of a poster who goes by the pseudonym “BePrepared.”
Stovall’s attorney, Jonathan Phelps ... filed a motion seeking a new trial, saying the online posting constitutes juror misconduct and hindered Stovall’s right to a fair trial.
Judge Ebberts said the poster’s identity was relevant to an investigation of criminal misconduct during the trial. He wrote that the prosecutor’s office has claimed that without the information, “a miscarriage of justice” would result.
So, as I understand it, this is what's happened: Stovall was found guilty of one charge, but the comment was posted, and Stovall's attorney thinks it was a juror. The prosecutor thinks that if it is a juror, that's a crime in itself (violating due process), so they both want to know who BePrepared is, and the prosecutor (effectively being an attorney for the court itself) got a subpoena for the poster's name. The newspaper asked to quash the subpoena, but the judge refused, so they now have to give up the name of the poster. If it is a juror, the guy gets a new trial, as his lawyer wants. If not, the trial proceeds as normal with the one charge standing.
If there's any fishing expedition, it comes from Stovall's own attorney. Double jeopardy doesn't apply: the accused doesn't get a free pass because somebody screwed with their due process. They just go through due process again.
...so the alternative to giving a public speaker's name to the government is that a juror's name is released to a newspaper?
Now that's a dangerous precedent...
without resorting to magic, which obviously cannot be the basis for sound policy.
Why not? It's worked for a few thousand years already, and in many cases it was actually the exclusion of magic that was considered unsound.
Note the differences in the statements you gave.
“I give you this orange.”
In this case, the giver is simply handing over a fruit. There is no indication of what the receiver is expected to do with it, whether it will be expected back, or whether it even is actually an edible orange. For all the receiver knows, taking the orange means he's just entered a common-law marriage with the giver's niece, mother, and cat.
“Know all persons by these present that I hereby give, grant, release, convey, transfer and quitclaim all my right, title, interest, benefit and use whatsoever in, or and concerning this chattel, otherwise known as an orange, or citrus aurantium, together with all the appurtenances thereto of skin, pulp, pip, rind, seeds and juice to have and to hold the said orange, for his own use and behoof, to himself and his heirs, in fee simple forever, free from all liens, encumbrances, easements, limitations, restraints or conditions whatsoever, any and all prior deeds, transfer, or other documents whatsoever, now or anywhere made to the contrary notwithstanding, with full power to bite, cut, suck or otherwise eat the said orange or to give away the same, with or without its skin, pulp, pip, rind, seeds or juice.”
Clarity at last! Let's break this down a bit...
Know all persons by these present
This is a public deal, and everybody watching is expected to know about it.
I hereby give, grant, release, convey, transfer and quitclaim all my right, title, interest, benefit and use whatsoever in, or and concerning this chattel
This is a final deal. There is no expectation (of any of several kinds) that the orange will be returned or that it's some kind of loan.
otherwise known as an orange, or citrus aurantium, together with all the appurtenances thereto of skin, pulp, pip, rind, seeds and juice
Specifically, it is an orange of one particular species, and all its parts. Here we can see that the receiver is getting everything, so the giver can't later say "oh, you should have given me those seeds; they were still mine!" and accuse the receiver of theft.
to have and to hold the said orange, for his own use and behoof, to himself and his heirs,
Now we know that the receiver will get this orange for himself, and isn't expected to pass it somewhere else.
in fee simple forever, free from all liens, encumbrances, easements, limitations, restraints or conditions whatsoever, any and all prior deeds, transfer, or other documents whatsoever, now or anywhere made to the contrary notwithstanding,
We now also know who else is looking for that orange: nobody. Once the receiver gets the orange, he owns it outright (in fee simple), and nobody else has a claim to it, regardless of what they might think (though if the orange was the collateral on a loan, the giver might now be in breach of that loan's contract.
with full power to bite, cut, suck or otherwise eat the said orange or to give away the same, with or without its skin, pulp, pip, rind, seeds or juice.”
And lastly, we know what the receiver is expected to do with the orange: bite, cut, suck, or eat, or give it away. Note that the receiver is not expected to throw the fruit at an elected official or bad actor (or both, as the case may be). Doing so could be argued as a breach of contract in court, freeing the giver from any liability, because he didn't give the receiver permission to use the fruit as a projectile (though he didn't exclude it, either, so it's a good point for debate).
This is so much more precise! Look at all the legal pitfalls we've avoided by using the lawyer's nuanced text!
For the record, I go to a game night run by a lawyer. The words he uses are "Beer's in the fridge; help yourself."
If they do all that well, then the attentive student will adopt a particular perspective
Or maybe not. Again you're defining how well the teacher teaches by what perspective the student develops, under the assumption that students must believe what they're properly taught. Reality is, no matter how well a teacher teaches, some students will inject their own meanings into the class, to come out with a different perspective. There's a few dozen biases in the way, and no class (or classes) will overcome them all. It is entirely possible that even with a full understanding of the mechanics of life, the student will still believe that the hand of God comes down at conception and blesses the zygote with a soul that eventually becomes the sentience of the person.
just as a well instructed astronomy class will cause students to adopt the heliocentric perspective.
And yet, the heliocentric perspective isn't correct in anything but the broadest sense. The Sun isn't the center of the universe, or our galaxy, or even our solar system. Of course it took two centuries to find that out, but that was still two centuries ago.
How much acknowledgement of fallibility should astronomers offer when they discuss Ptolemy?
Quite a lot. They should realize that Ptolemy's ideas were far better than his predecessors, but still incorrect, and similarly their own ideas may only be a better form of wrong.
I am always on the lookout for alternative perspectives that can explain the world as it is. Anti-abortionists have provided none.
On the contrary, they have provided the explanation that God plans for all people, including those in all stages of development. You just reject that out of hand because it's not your preferred explanation. It's not mine either, but I cannot prove them wrong. After all, the burden of proof lies with the one trying to change the other's mind. Your perfect biology class must not only teach biology, but disprove the preexisting theories of the students.
All very true. I did not mean to imply that prose or poetry would translate directly into a career as a lawyer, but rather that I feel schools simply don't focus enough on difficult works (and I generally find older works to have more difficult material). The goal in a literature class is to explore the deeper meanings and interpretations of literature. For that purpose, many modern works are fine (though I'm partial to science fiction, myself).
What I bemoan is that there is never a class emphasizing reading comprehension as a skill, where students learn to dissect written passages into the parts relevant to the question at hand, where the logical differences between "and" and "or" are explored (with regards to their use in language), and the placement of a comma makes all the difference in the world.
I had intended to include a mention of Shakespeare in my post, complaining about the approach often used to teach it. In the opening of Romeo and Juliet, for example, one character makes a rude gesture to another, but is careful in his phrasing to stay legal (for a while). While a modern literature class would delve into the culture of dueling and family honor, the breakdown of the careful phrasing is overlooked.
Perhaps better would be to complain about the loss of Latin classes. They focused more on grammar, as I recall.
[citation needed]
No, really... I want proof of the "fact" that abortion does not kill a baby. Not just general consensus among doctors, either... absolute proof.
It's not "close to" a No True Scotsman fallacy. It is a No True Scotsman fallacy. You're evaluating whether a biology class is really a class or not based on the unrelated attribute of whether the students adopt a particular perspective afterward.
You're also defining "thinking critically" as "thinking like Hatta". There is no acknowledgement that you may me mistaken - no falsifiability, as all science must have. You're glossing over the logical leaps, and emphasizing your particular conclusion as being the only right one. This is the point of my original comment: You're assuming your perspective is the only right one.
why do I not find any tools for local government? Is that too difficult and expansive to tackle?
Having worked on an election-information site, I can tell you definitively: yes.
Every state chooses its own process for elections, and often each municipality can change that process as they see fit. There is no requirement that information about the ballots be made available in digital form. There is no requirement that any particular format be used. In some places, the only description of what's on the ballot is a small notice in the local weekly newspaper, and the ballot itself. Even a list of candidates is hard to get for some technology-opposing areas.
When I worked on my particular election site, we had eight people on staff, and five of them were working full-time collecting information from newspapers, government agencies, and sometimes phone calls to the candidates themselves.
This election has been devoid of any discussion of any issues of importance to me.
FTFY
The issues that are being discussed in this election are the issues people (outside Slashdot) are talking about... taxes, abortions, debt, and the like. While we nerds are concerned about the flaws of deadly machines, statistical disparities in the justice system, and the disconnect between security theory and security theater, we are in the minority. Other people are concerned about silly things like killing babies, whether they'll be able to retire, and what country hates us the most.
A privacy policy shouldn't just be a checkbox on a compliance procedure. Like any policy, it should only be the result of careful consideration. Yes, eventually many developers will come to broadly the same conclusions, but the process of writing (and verifying) the policy conveys the importance it should have. The privacy policy is effectively a promise of what your app will or won't do, and if that promise is made just to save time, it likely won't mean anything to the person making it.
Sure, there could be a Creative Commons-like system, where developers pick and choose what options they include. My concern is that by having an easy-to-make policy, the policy is also easy to forget. When a later version adds a new feature or advertisements, how likely is it that the long-forgotten privacy policy will be updated to match? If a legally-bulletproof blanket-permission policy can be made cheaply and easily, why not just apply that to all apps, regardless of the actual capabilities of the program?