You think Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are the only people allowed to get rich from good timing?
BG and SJ did not get rich just because of good timing. Lots of their contemporaries were in the same boat and went nowhere, even though some of them had an advantage! BG didn't even have an OS when he got a phone call from IBM. BG and SJ got rich because they worked hard, and they had talent for management. You can easily see the world of difference between BG's MS and Ballmer's MS. You also can see that Apple was about to die when SJ walked in and made it into a somewhat more valuable business.
The "saving of lives" comes not from yet another payment instrument. That is just convenience. Saving of lives comes from real stuff - computers that run hospitals, for example. Or even your medical insurance. This is the only thing that matters. BG contributed to computerization of the society; that cannot be debated. Therefore his net effect on the world is positive. Is it worth his billions? Maybe. Maybe not. But he worked for it, and we have the planet that is full of computers. Would someone else do better? Perhaps. But IBM, the closest competitor, was not that good with OS/2. I worked with it, and it even looked ancient. Programming for it was not a dream either.
Every bill has a serial number. Bill readers could be required by law for all cash transactions over, say, $50.
"could be" << "already in place." BTC is not anonymous; it is just obfuscated and hard to trace casually. Want to trace it for real? Watch everyone's network traffic and look for BTC transactions. It's much easier to deploy black boxes at every ISP than to deploy cash readers everywhere. Besides, if $50 is above the threshold, "I'd like a thousand dollars, all in $20 bills." In the end, only the honest people are impacted.
I just can't see the Feds or any other government failing to do this within the next ten years.
I just can't see the government ever doing it. There is no money to do so, and there is no clear reason why. Congress does not exist in vacuum; they cannot just vote to decimate the population of the USA, for example. Can you imagine how popular those politicians will be with their own electorate - who often sticks to cash only dealings?
do we know that the serial numbers on the bills you pick up at your ATM aren't (maybe covertly) tied to you at withdrawal now?
It doesn't matter. These are all easily deniable operations. Just withdraw a wad of cash from a bank and swap bills around within your gang. Nobody will be able to tell which bill went where, and everyone has an alibi.
Besides, it might be a shock to an honest person, but criminals do not obtain their cash from banks (except when they rob them.) Their cash comes from illegal dealings, such as drugs and hookers and robbery and burglary. It gets spent also among the same crowd. So the government only can trace money that is in the hands of honest people.
It would appear that some techies realized that currency control is a tool to unjustly oppress people
All money issuers were using money to oppress people, to some extent. Why was the privilege of minting coins given only to the top aristocracy? Gold coins often were the sole privilege of the king. Lacking some advantage, why would aristocracy bother with a metalworking business?
The engineering (ie math) seem to be solid
The crypto scheme appears to be reasonably well done. However in practice there are several attack vectors, and they are possible to execute if you want to. It will cost you, but governments can do that already. It's just the matter of commitment and resources. BTC also has several usability problems, like the long time to clear a transaction (with 6 recommended confirmations, it's between 15 and 30 minutes.) Are you willing to stand in limbo at the grocery store for that much? There are no trusted BTC terminals; and if they were, they could be subverted because BTC depends on access to the network to calculate hashes - and the merchant does not control the network. Plug this merchant's network cable into your own router, run a hundred pet peers, and you can confirm any transaction you want. (On an open Internet you need to subvert the majority of hosts.)
the economic rationale is logically sound
It is debatable, and that's what is always debated in every article about BTC. In essence, there is no rationale that would work for pretty much anyone except Silk Road users. BTC transactions are not even free; but a Visa c/c pays me for using it. Why would I want to pay in BTC?
"it's a scam"
Scam or not, but early miners mined millions of BTCs when mining was good. Where are those BTCs? If the exchange rate of one BTC goes to $10K, for example, those early miners will become richer than Bill Gates. Will that be fair? I think not. Those guys (still anonymous!) may have done good for the society, but the society cannot value the formula (that doesn't even save lives!) that high. BG's Windows does save lives, as part of many computers.
An AC who replied to you should be moderated up. Bitcoin transactions are not always free! Small amounts of BTC (hardcoded in the software) cannot be even transferred without a fee. If you want to transfer just a fraction of a BTC then all your money will be spent on the fee, and nothing remains. Large transactions may or may not be processed, also per the will of soneone else.
This is extremely important because supplies of BTC are finite, and the currency has built-in deflation. It is already $100 USD per BTC or something - this means you have to subdivide your BTC into thousands of smaller units. Numerically, you can do it. Financially, these units are useless.
That's one of the less obvious reasons why government-issued cash is the king for legal (and not so much) transactions. Cash is sufficiently secure, is untraceable, requires no Internet, and the transaction completes in seconds instead of 30 minutes. And on top of that, you don't need to pay a fee for the privilege of transferring cash.
But, of course, if everyone starts generating transaction noise just to confuse the watchers, then BTC will grind to a halt and will be entirely unusable for payments.
I use more than one computer simultaneously. If I don't touch the keyboard or a mouse for a while, it doesn't mean that there is not something on the screen that I need to see all the time.
My PC is set up to go to sleep after 1 hour of inactivity. If this happens just twice per day in a business setting, it results in 2 wasted hours per day per PC. If a PC draws 80W (a good number if a single HDD is used,) then you are burning needlessly through 160Wh of energy, only because you are too lazy to click on an icon and put the box into one of sleep modes before you go to lunch or home. This also adds wear to the fans that the computer has running.
Configuring the computer for a shorter timeout will result in other problems, such as walking away to talk to someone and, upon returning, finding your PC asleep. It's annoying.
So Facebook should be allowed to host videos of child rape?
Well, in this particular case no rape was involved. I haven't seen the video, but apparently it depicted a drunk girl in some state of disrepair. We also know that it was used to further haunt that girl.
But to answer your original question... I think nobody can be "allowed" to host illegal materials. The one that you threw in as an example would classify as illegal. Providers are immune from prosecution as long as they don't have a positive censorship system. Some forums are moderated, and therefore have such a system. The provider of an unmoderated forum has to remove the illegal material as soon as they are informed about its existence. The poster may be prosecuted for distribution of an illegal material.
One question to ask would be what FB people knew, and when they knew it, about this video. Did the girl complain to FB? If she did, and FB people did nothing, that would be bad. If the girl did not complain (didn't know that she can, for example) then FB had no way to know that a certain video, one out of millions that are uploaded daily, is causing problems.
Facebook has every way to verify the age of someone who wants an account - they just don't want to bother because there's a cost associated with it.
Most likely because they do only what the law requires. Gaming sites, for example, just ask to enter your birth date. You can enter whatever you want. Is the law insufficient? Perhaps. But that's the best law money can buy.
In most cases the age cannot be verified without an interview where government-issued documents are checked. Can you imagine how much *that* would cost? Can Slashdot afford that, for example? For a registration from Central Africa? You'd have to send an expedition to conduct that interview. Will the civilization be better off if Web sites refuse to accept registrations from 3rd world? Or, perhaps, the society as a whole benefits from free access to information; and if that information is too much for some - that's sad, but we won't keep millions of adults in diapers. Don't hold millions of responsible children hostage just because one or two, somewhere, were not responsible. Make sure it's they who are punished, not thousands of innocent users.
There is yet another reason to that. You cannot, technically and physically, protect everyone from everything. Once you achieve some level of protection, another idiot discovers how to bypass that protection, and you are back to square one. If idiots are not fought against, you will get more of them. It's far more advantageous to not let idiots run free. Idiots must be contained, and punished as a lesson to others. In the end you will get fewer fools, and you don't need to infringe on rights of honest and careful people.
Why do you want to keep email on a server that you do not control? This applies to both GMail and your ISP. If you use them as MTAs, download the messages as soon as they arrive, and delete them from the servers.
Well, of course I cannot be sure. I don't even think most US lawyers know how to deal with this because this is an international matter that involves a multinational (?) company. I just use logic - even though it is known that logic and law are not necessarily the same.
"It is illegal to hire a child"
Nobody can be expected to do a miracle or to demonstrate omniscience. If a young man walks into your business, shows a document that is seemingly valid, and the document says he is an adult - then he *is* an adult, as far as a mere mortal can be concerned. You do your due diligence; not more and not less.
How can a foreign Web site verify that you are an adult? And, by the way, who are *you* to begin with? By what identity? Chinese people have several identities for different use, for example. Also, you'd be an adult per laws of what country? Per the country where the Web server is? Per the country where the FB headquarters are? Per the country that you are a citizen of? Per the country that you are visiting? Those are important differences. Just the difference in marriage age can mean that a family that is man and wife on this side of the border are a a child and a child rapist on another.
That's why I think the question is complex enough. However the law is expected to be universally reasonable. If a villain changes all speed signs from 50 to 70 on a certain road, you cannot be guilty of speeding just because you cannot be expected to be a psychic. You did everything in your power that any reasonable person would do. If someone fools a remote Web site by using a stolen or fake ID, there is nothing that the Web site can do to stop you - especially if that is a foreign ID. Outside of international passports, there is no standard for such IDs. You need a personal digital certificate, with biometrics, to be sure - and even then all you can be sure of is that the owner of the digital certificate was somehow involved. For all they know, it might be just his stolen USB key and his finger that they cut off from the body. It's damn hard to authenticate anyone. Just ask Judge Dredd about that.
No contract can be deemed valid if it was made by a party who is not qualified to make contracts. Your child cannot hire a servant. If the child calls and a servant, being misled, comes and does work, s/he is entitled to compensation, but she cannot stay employed.
In this case, if the video poster misrepresented his age then yes, FB is entitled to some remedy. The most obvious one is to terminate future services. If the poster caused harm to FB (not really) then FB could sue for that. I cannot think of anything else that would stick. FB's servers are running, and no sysadmin got injured. The FB's name may be dragged through the mud, but that's not the first time.
Now, the underage poster cannot sue FB because there was never a contract. Whatever he accepted when he made a FB account is null and void. If FB caused *him* any damage, he is free to sue (through proper representation) but here I don't see any grounds for that.
In other words, either party is only entitled to compensation of expenses that resulted from an invalid contract. A company could have purchased materials, hired people, etc. - this costs money. But if a child ordered airplane tickets to fly to Florida and play at Disneyland, when he fails to receive those tickets he has no grounds to sue the airline, even if until the last moment everyone believed that the contract is good.
Now, let's see if a valid contract makes a difference. It certainly does, because now those ToS are active - you both agreed, and it is legally binding, that you will follow them. Then yes, either side can sue the other side for the breach. Web companies rarely, if ever, sue (or get sued) because there is usually very little at stake.
The case of Aaron Swartz is somewhat different because he was charged with "wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and recklessly damaging a protected computer." It was alleged that he jumped through uncommon hoops to get access: "The authorities say Swartz downloaded the documents through a laptop connected to a networking switch in a controlled-access wiring closet." In this case of FB, nobody hacked anything, and no spy-fu was required - everyone just asked nicely, and they were given accounts. At most, one can allege theft of service, but that won't fly if the service was lawfully obtained through a valid contract with an adult.
But none of that matters if an entirely unrelated party, like the Italian prosecutor, wants to sue FB. The ToS is hardly relevant here because the Italian people did not sign those. What did they sign? They signed the corporate charter of FB, if it operates as an Italian company. That placed FB under the Italian law, and the Italy can sue per their domestic laws.
If FB is not an Italian company then they don't have jurisdiction. The prosecutor has to go to the court that does have it (somewhere in the USA, I presume) and, probably, allege a wrongdoing according to the US law. Otherwise the US court will not listen. Other countries may have weird laws, like prohibition of alcohol in Saudi Arabia. They are not entitled to barge in here and ask US courts to incarcerate pretty much everyone in the USA.
In this case, the Italian side will have to show that a violation of US law by FB likely occurred. Essentially they would report a crime to US authorities. This is super unlikely here.
A civil case would be much easier. For example, if you borrowed money from an Italian and refuse to return, the creditor can probably (IANAL) sue you in the US court. But I don't see how such a thing could fit here - Italy and FB (wholly US based) have no contracts between them that need to be arbitrated.
But I am not a lawyer, and I may know nothing about how the law really works. I am only testing the keyboard - as far as anyone knows:-)
Not a contradiction. Most of the Web does not require an explicit contract. You just go to the site and read the information. A small percentage of the Web does have an explicit contract that you accept by clicking that button. Some sites are in between; Slashdot is such a site. It has a contract, somewhere, but nobody reads it. It has accounts, but it doesn't verify anything that you put there. But you don't need to have an account to use the site, even for posting.
I was not bullied a lot and if I snapped, I would have killed the bully first.
Those are related items. The willingness to seriously hurt the bully is a major factor in bullies choosing someone else for their sadist exercises. Usually there is a suitable victim available.
In my experience, bullying ends just about the time when young people learn to defend themselves by dealing an unacceptable damage to the offender. Shortly after that bullying stops altogether because the victim can make a single phone call to the police and cause a ton of pain to the bully. Only children cannot call the police, and only children cannot carry a legal folder. A young man can do both.
I never signed up for FB, so I don't know - do they require an official verification that your name is what you say it is? I read that Google did such a thing, and was once given a photoshopped driver's license of James T. Kirk - and accepted it.
If they don't, there is an infinite supply of real names that are free for borrowing, from any culture and in any language.
did facebook force her to sign up? did facebook force her to get hammered and act a fool?
As far as I understand, the incident has nothing to do with her even having a FB account. The videographers who recorded her being drunk did have an account; but that has nothing to do with *their* privacy (such as of the account owner.)
In essence, FB is being sued for allowing someone else (the people who recorded the video) to post that video for everyone to see. That video was offensive to some other people. How would FB censors, even if FB had them, know what is and what isn't offensive?
In the end, it will be judged by the fact whether FB had a certain duty, and they failed at that duty. I suspect FB has no duty to watch users' videos. With regard to the contract, I am not sure if there was a contract. Most of the Web operates without an explicitly defined contract. It is hard to even establish competence over the Internet; and most services are free in every aspect. Can FB be guilty of giving access to a child? Depends on what that child said about his age. Most likely the EULA says "By clicking "Accept" I verify that I am of certain age and of legal age to form a contract." If the child did that, he misled the service provider and fraudulently obtained access to FB. The FB has no way to verify his age. It could be even impossible with EU's strict privacy laws.
I'm driving a hybrid, and I'd say it's the best *single* car you can buy. If you want to have two or more cars, then you may be better off with one gas car, or one truck, and one EV; then you can use each of them where they shine. But if you only have one car then only a hybrid will work. It is impossible to even contemplate (for me, at least) that I cannot go to a certain place just because the car is being charged, or because there is not enough range. My car will take me anywhere and at any time, and I am comfortable knowing that. A plug-in hybrid like Volt will work as an EV during short trips, so you get the best of both worlds. A pure EV today is just asking for trouble.
I'd love a full-electric car, with about 50-80 mile range, which could tow a trailer or hook up a hitch mounted rack with a generator in/on it for longer trips.
That would be GM Volt. The generator is inside, no need to tow it. The MSRP is $32K, which is also lower than most EVs. Volt is a true EV; the inbuilt ICE only runs a generator. Buy one today.
it should be pointed out that driving 350 miles (in any car) sucks. It means you are sitting in a chair, unable to do anything but watch the road in front of you, for 5+ tedious hours.
I drive 450 miles per day sometimes. If mere 350 miles suck for you, you are doing something wrong. To me, the drive is pleasing, relaxing, and entertaining. If you need more than just watching the road, you are always free to listen to the radio, a CD, or an audio book. If you have a cell phone you can hold a teleconference (over hands-free interface, of course!) If you have a ham radio you can talk on repeaters (no hands-free is required by law for that.)
Most people who need to go that far would prefer to take an airplane; and certainly anyone who can afford a Tesla can afford plane tickets.
The USA is a large country. You can fly to my destinations only in a GA airplane that can land onto a minimal strip. Some of my destinations have no airports of any kind nearby.
So I see the 300 mile range limit as largely a non-issue (outside of perception/marketing, anyway).
That is probably true. If you need to make such trips with any regularity, an EV is a wrong car to buy. A road trip not only requires enough charge to travel between charging stations; it only requires quick recharge at those stations. Currently only gas or diesel cars qualify for that.
If you set road trips aside, you will end up with a city car that can survive on 100-150 miles per charge. My own in-city trips are about 60-70 miles max, with 30 miles being typical. But watch for the hills - though a decent regen brakes will recoup a good portion of expended energy on the way down. But that works only if you live in the valley and climb the hills closer to the end of your trip.
The Fisker Hybrid fire you posted about wasn't from the EV components. It was theorized that it was from an exhaust component
Perhaps. But let me first talk about the fire that destroyed parked Karmas after they were flooded by a hurricane. They burned up because a short in the system, caused by conductive seawater. The ICE was not involved in that fire.
Now we can look back at the fire in the parking lot in Woodside, CA. Per the latest news, the fire was caused by a fan. In every standard car, the fan would not be under power when a vehicle is parked; and even then there would be a fuse. You can say that it's an outcome of a bad design, done by people who don't know a thing about making cars. (Outside of Henrik Fisker, we don't know who was and who wasn't good enough there.) Perhaps Karma's karma caught up with it.
It's the same that happened with Top Gear's review.
I did not mention that because, IMO and from what I know, it was a clear setup just for publicity and shock value.
I doubt that half the charge was 'lost', it was more likely under reported because the battery was cold, giving it the appearance of less capacity.
Per the evidence, it was lost. Tesla support people *thought* it was underreported, but all that the reporter did, per Tesla's advice, only led to further depletion of the battery. In the end, the car ended up on a flatbed. In hindsight, there was probably something that the reporter could do - like driving back to the supercharger right from the hotel. But he was advised to act differently.
Unless there's a spark it's not going to do anything
Tantalum capacitors will provide that spark aplenty.
I question the high discharge - water isn't that conductive
Water in rivers and ponds is quite conductive because it contains lots of salts that are leeched out of the soil. Agricultural runoff doesn't help either. In terms of the current, it all depends on how much surface is exposed to the water, and how much of that will etch away during the electrolysis. Of course, the seawater is an instant short.
There's far more than fuel from an IC car that will pollute the water.
There is very little of those other liquids, and many of them are alcohol-based, perfectly soluble in water. Only the gasoline has potential to harm the ecology. But when a car falls into a water, it's usually not damaged, so the gas tank will remain intact. Damage to fuel pipes will not result in pollution because the fuel pump is not running.
even if they don't trip DC doesn't electrocute people like AC does.
DC is just as dangerous as AC, on average. At those voltages (375V) the contact will result in 3rd degree burns (if you are lucky and the path doesn't go through the heart) or... well, then you don't care anymore.
you might get a lithium fire underwater, but at least that's not horribly toxic.
Most of the Lithium will remain inside the battery, and the car will be lifted out of the water shortly. Any danger that comes from that battery will be short-term (emission of poisonous and/or explosive gases, and thermal effects on humans inside the car.) Water may not provide sufficient cooling because it is a reagent in the reaction that produces steam. Here is a good technical video that demonstrates what happens and what gases are generated. Here is the MSDS on LiOH - it will be in generated gases, and it will kill the occupants of the car if they breathe it in. LiOH has only a short window of danger, though, because it will quickly dissolve in water. Other generated gases will come
Ability to communicate over long distances did change the world - it was a disruptive technology, and it was not instantly accepted. Some (Amish) are still refusing it.
However telecommunication only gave you an additional ability. It took nothing from you. If you don't want to be disturbed, have no phone at home.
GG does give the wearer new abilities, just like it was with telephone users. However everyone else loses their privilege to be not seen, not recognized; to be forgotten. They cannot do anything to change that because GG users are ignoring their wishes. This thread is an excellent illustration of this problem.
GG users can go against the wishes of polite and honest people for a while. However there is a large subculture of people (we call them criminals and gangs) who do not get all that excited about being recorded. You think iPhone robberies are a bad thing? You have seen nothing yet. An iPhone can be carried in a pocket; good luck with carrying a GG that way. What will a gang do if you show up on "their turf" with a GG? Will they suddenly become model citizens?
There will be also a massive pushback (an outright prohibition) of GG in businesses. This is an ideal spy device, in case it's not obvious. Showing up at a research facility with GG would be a firing offense. Today you have to surrender your phones and cameras before entering a classified facility. Tomorrow you will not be allowed to wear a GG inside of most businesses. Even wearing a GG at a common garage may be not welcome because it may record something that the mechanic can regret later on. We all make mistakes; taping them is not something we appreciate.
Google Glass actually _helps_ here. If you were wearing one then you can show them exactly where you were at that time....
No, it does not do that. All it does is showing exactly where your GG was at that time. That makes a huge difference in court. A GG footage will never be accepted as evidence unless there is a way to prove identity - say, two GG that film each other.
Even that could be used only if the video was streamed in real time and timestamped by a 3rd party (Google HQ would be good enough.) If the video is locally recorded, forget it - the date and the time can be manipulated. It also will be a cool science project to take the GG apart and connect the SSD camera to an external recording device. This way a GG could be fed false video. For example, you could get a fake alibi by being filmed at a certain place (true place and time, confirmed by GPS) at a certain date (false - you were there a day before, but the hacked GG was fed yesterday's bits into today's live feed.) It only takes one such hack, made by only one person, to invalidate, in court's eyes, all recordings made by all users.
Besides, it just sounds ugly that we have to tape ourselves to protect us from false accusations. There are many small violations of law happening all the time - speeding by 3 mph over, jaywalking, not fully stopping at stop signs, and so on. Most of that is not dangerous. But if GG collects enough evidence, it's all prosecutable. Do you want to live in a Panopticon?
Dashcams are helpful if you want to present your side of the story. However there is a million dollar difference - the SD cards that these dashcams record onto are not streamed in real time to the cloud. They are simply overwritten after some number of hours. They forget. The GG forgets nothing.
Google had made only one major invention, and that invention was of their search infrastructure, and it happened a while ago. It was significant.
However after that happened and Google got larger and richer, most of what they tried quickly crumbles and falls apart. Google Earth (not their invention) and StreetView (Google's invention, AFAIK) are good examples of their later successes, but even there they managed to f. up by recording other people's 802.11 payloads.
I can't remember off the top of my head anything else that Google was successful with. Perhaps Google Translate, though that usually generates comedy material (and is likely based on a COTS backend.) Google also used to have a decent web MUA, but nowadays even OWA is just as good.
The battery is a POS and its lucky to stay on for 10 seconds when the user isn't actively engaging it, and even then the charge won't last a day.
That's exactly how a disruptive idea is introduced. First you declare it to be harmless because of technical limitations or high cost. The society grudgingly accepts that. Then the technology improves, and the device becomes really dangerous - but it is already part of the society, with its own net of addicts and abusers. Opiates began as an exotic Asian treat that is available only to chosen few; read how the Count of Monte Cristo used them.
Names and addresses and habits? Douchebag. That was never said.
Never said but always presumed. This is one of "selling points" of GG. It has no keyboard, but it is trivial to run a search on a name automatically and put it up in a corner.
I'm not talking about a "handful" of "friends" and "associates". I'm talking about everyone I've ever been introduced to. For most people, that is over 1,000 people.
Stupid me. I didn't realize that you want superhuman abilities.
There's off the shelf speciality products that can record your every move more covertly than this tool will ever do. So what exactly is your problem with this product specifically?
A specialized product costs a lot, requires skills to use, and won't be used against you without a good reason. If there is a good reason, you will be filmed and you won't know that.
A mass market product is cheap, requires no skill to use, and can be used against you for no reason and at any time. You will be immersed in the field of GG wearers, and you cannot identify any one of them that films you specifically; chances are that they are all filming you from time to time - not targeting you, of course. Human eyes have a limited zone of sharp vision - just a few degrees. Cameras have better lenses, and their sensors are good everywhere. Your activities will be captured from many points. Since GG streams video to the mothership, you have no idea how this video will be used, and by who. You can bet dollars to donuts that every TLA in the country is lining up to get a private feed of that video.
In other words, you are proposing to allow every kid in the country to carry a deadly knife just because, in theory, some of these kids can spend a lot of money and get a handgun.
Slashdot Mirror
You think Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are the only people allowed to get rich from good timing?
BG and SJ did not get rich just because of good timing. Lots of their contemporaries were in the same boat and went nowhere, even though some of them had an advantage! BG didn't even have an OS when he got a phone call from IBM. BG and SJ got rich because they worked hard, and they had talent for management. You can easily see the world of difference between BG's MS and Ballmer's MS. You also can see that Apple was about to die when SJ walked in and made it into a somewhat more valuable business.
The "saving of lives" comes not from yet another payment instrument. That is just convenience. Saving of lives comes from real stuff - computers that run hospitals, for example. Or even your medical insurance. This is the only thing that matters. BG contributed to computerization of the society; that cannot be debated. Therefore his net effect on the world is positive. Is it worth his billions? Maybe. Maybe not. But he worked for it, and we have the planet that is full of computers. Would someone else do better? Perhaps. But IBM, the closest competitor, was not that good with OS/2. I worked with it, and it even looked ancient. Programming for it was not a dream either.
Every bill has a serial number. Bill readers could be required by law for all cash transactions over, say, $50.
"could be" << "already in place." BTC is not anonymous; it is just obfuscated and hard to trace casually. Want to trace it for real? Watch everyone's network traffic and look for BTC transactions. It's much easier to deploy black boxes at every ISP than to deploy cash readers everywhere. Besides, if $50 is above the threshold, "I'd like a thousand dollars, all in $20 bills." In the end, only the honest people are impacted.
I just can't see the Feds or any other government failing to do this within the next ten years.
I just can't see the government ever doing it. There is no money to do so, and there is no clear reason why. Congress does not exist in vacuum; they cannot just vote to decimate the population of the USA, for example. Can you imagine how popular those politicians will be with their own electorate - who often sticks to cash only dealings?
do we know that the serial numbers on the bills you pick up at your ATM aren't (maybe covertly) tied to you at withdrawal now?
It doesn't matter. These are all easily deniable operations. Just withdraw a wad of cash from a bank and swap bills around within your gang. Nobody will be able to tell which bill went where, and everyone has an alibi.
Besides, it might be a shock to an honest person, but criminals do not obtain their cash from banks (except when they rob them.) Their cash comes from illegal dealings, such as drugs and hookers and robbery and burglary. It gets spent also among the same crowd. So the government only can trace money that is in the hands of honest people.
It would appear that some techies realized that currency control is a tool to unjustly oppress people
All money issuers were using money to oppress people, to some extent. Why was the privilege of minting coins given only to the top aristocracy? Gold coins often were the sole privilege of the king. Lacking some advantage, why would aristocracy bother with a metalworking business?
The engineering (ie math) seem to be solid
The crypto scheme appears to be reasonably well done. However in practice there are several attack vectors, and they are possible to execute if you want to. It will cost you, but governments can do that already. It's just the matter of commitment and resources. BTC also has several usability problems, like the long time to clear a transaction (with 6 recommended confirmations, it's between 15 and 30 minutes.) Are you willing to stand in limbo at the grocery store for that much? There are no trusted BTC terminals; and if they were, they could be subverted because BTC depends on access to the network to calculate hashes - and the merchant does not control the network. Plug this merchant's network cable into your own router, run a hundred pet peers, and you can confirm any transaction you want. (On an open Internet you need to subvert the majority of hosts.)
the economic rationale is logically sound
It is debatable, and that's what is always debated in every article about BTC. In essence, there is no rationale that would work for pretty much anyone except Silk Road users. BTC transactions are not even free; but a Visa c/c pays me for using it. Why would I want to pay in BTC?
"it's a scam"
Scam or not, but early miners mined millions of BTCs when mining was good. Where are those BTCs? If the exchange rate of one BTC goes to $10K, for example, those early miners will become richer than Bill Gates. Will that be fair? I think not. Those guys (still anonymous!) may have done good for the society, but the society cannot value the formula (that doesn't even save lives!) that high. BG's Windows does save lives, as part of many computers.
An AC who replied to you should be moderated up. Bitcoin transactions are not always free! Small amounts of BTC (hardcoded in the software) cannot be even transferred without a fee. If you want to transfer just a fraction of a BTC then all your money will be spent on the fee, and nothing remains. Large transactions may or may not be processed, also per the will of soneone else.
This is extremely important because supplies of BTC are finite, and the currency has built-in deflation. It is already $100 USD per BTC or something - this means you have to subdivide your BTC into thousands of smaller units. Numerically, you can do it. Financially, these units are useless.
That's one of the less obvious reasons why government-issued cash is the king for legal (and not so much) transactions. Cash is sufficiently secure, is untraceable, requires no Internet, and the transaction completes in seconds instead of 30 minutes. And on top of that, you don't need to pay a fee for the privilege of transferring cash.
But, of course, if everyone starts generating transaction noise just to confuse the watchers, then BTC will grind to a halt and will be entirely unusable for payments.
I use more than one computer simultaneously. If I don't touch the keyboard or a mouse for a while, it doesn't mean that there is not something on the screen that I need to see all the time.
My PC is set up to go to sleep after 1 hour of inactivity. If this happens just twice per day in a business setting, it results in 2 wasted hours per day per PC. If a PC draws 80W (a good number if a single HDD is used,) then you are burning needlessly through 160Wh of energy, only because you are too lazy to click on an icon and put the box into one of sleep modes before you go to lunch or home. This also adds wear to the fans that the computer has running.
Configuring the computer for a shorter timeout will result in other problems, such as walking away to talk to someone and, upon returning, finding your PC asleep. It's annoying.
So Facebook should be allowed to host videos of child rape?
Well, in this particular case no rape was involved. I haven't seen the video, but apparently it depicted a drunk girl in some state of disrepair. We also know that it was used to further haunt that girl.
But to answer your original question... I think nobody can be "allowed" to host illegal materials. The one that you threw in as an example would classify as illegal. Providers are immune from prosecution as long as they don't have a positive censorship system. Some forums are moderated, and therefore have such a system. The provider of an unmoderated forum has to remove the illegal material as soon as they are informed about its existence. The poster may be prosecuted for distribution of an illegal material.
One question to ask would be what FB people knew, and when they knew it, about this video. Did the girl complain to FB? If she did, and FB people did nothing, that would be bad. If the girl did not complain (didn't know that she can, for example) then FB had no way to know that a certain video, one out of millions that are uploaded daily, is causing problems.
Facebook has every way to verify the age of someone who wants an account - they just don't want to bother because there's a cost associated with it.
Most likely because they do only what the law requires. Gaming sites, for example, just ask to enter your birth date. You can enter whatever you want. Is the law insufficient? Perhaps. But that's the best law money can buy.
In most cases the age cannot be verified without an interview where government-issued documents are checked. Can you imagine how much *that* would cost? Can Slashdot afford that, for example? For a registration from Central Africa? You'd have to send an expedition to conduct that interview. Will the civilization be better off if Web sites refuse to accept registrations from 3rd world? Or, perhaps, the society as a whole benefits from free access to information; and if that information is too much for some - that's sad, but we won't keep millions of adults in diapers. Don't hold millions of responsible children hostage just because one or two, somewhere, were not responsible. Make sure it's they who are punished, not thousands of innocent users.
There is yet another reason to that. You cannot, technically and physically, protect everyone from everything. Once you achieve some level of protection, another idiot discovers how to bypass that protection, and you are back to square one. If idiots are not fought against, you will get more of them. It's far more advantageous to not let idiots run free. Idiots must be contained, and punished as a lesson to others. In the end you will get fewer fools, and you don't need to infringe on rights of honest and careful people.
Why do you want to keep email on a server that you do not control? This applies to both GMail and your ISP. If you use them as MTAs, download the messages as soon as they arrive, and delete them from the servers.
Well, of course I cannot be sure. I don't even think most US lawyers know how to deal with this because this is an international matter that involves a multinational (?) company. I just use logic - even though it is known that logic and law are not necessarily the same.
"It is illegal to hire a child"
Nobody can be expected to do a miracle or to demonstrate omniscience. If a young man walks into your business, shows a document that is seemingly valid, and the document says he is an adult - then he *is* an adult, as far as a mere mortal can be concerned. You do your due diligence; not more and not less.
How can a foreign Web site verify that you are an adult? And, by the way, who are *you* to begin with? By what identity? Chinese people have several identities for different use, for example. Also, you'd be an adult per laws of what country? Per the country where the Web server is? Per the country where the FB headquarters are? Per the country that you are a citizen of? Per the country that you are visiting? Those are important differences. Just the difference in marriage age can mean that a family that is man and wife on this side of the border are a a child and a child rapist on another.
That's why I think the question is complex enough. However the law is expected to be universally reasonable. If a villain changes all speed signs from 50 to 70 on a certain road, you cannot be guilty of speeding just because you cannot be expected to be a psychic. You did everything in your power that any reasonable person would do. If someone fools a remote Web site by using a stolen or fake ID, there is nothing that the Web site can do to stop you - especially if that is a foreign ID. Outside of international passports, there is no standard for such IDs. You need a personal digital certificate, with biometrics, to be sure - and even then all you can be sure of is that the owner of the digital certificate was somehow involved. For all they know, it might be just his stolen USB key and his finger that they cut off from the body. It's damn hard to authenticate anyone. Just ask Judge Dredd about that.
No contract can be deemed valid if it was made by a party who is not qualified to make contracts. Your child cannot hire a servant. If the child calls and a servant, being misled, comes and does work, s/he is entitled to compensation, but she cannot stay employed.
In this case, if the video poster misrepresented his age then yes, FB is entitled to some remedy. The most obvious one is to terminate future services. If the poster caused harm to FB (not really) then FB could sue for that. I cannot think of anything else that would stick. FB's servers are running, and no sysadmin got injured. The FB's name may be dragged through the mud, but that's not the first time.
Now, the underage poster cannot sue FB because there was never a contract. Whatever he accepted when he made a FB account is null and void. If FB caused *him* any damage, he is free to sue (through proper representation) but here I don't see any grounds for that.
In other words, either party is only entitled to compensation of expenses that resulted from an invalid contract. A company could have purchased materials, hired people, etc. - this costs money. But if a child ordered airplane tickets to fly to Florida and play at Disneyland, when he fails to receive those tickets he has no grounds to sue the airline, even if until the last moment everyone believed that the contract is good.
Now, let's see if a valid contract makes a difference. It certainly does, because now those ToS are active - you both agreed, and it is legally binding, that you will follow them. Then yes, either side can sue the other side for the breach. Web companies rarely, if ever, sue (or get sued) because there is usually very little at stake.
The case of Aaron Swartz is somewhat different because he was charged with "wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer and recklessly damaging a protected computer." It was alleged that he jumped through uncommon hoops to get access: "The authorities say Swartz downloaded the documents through a laptop connected to a networking switch in a controlled-access wiring closet." In this case of FB, nobody hacked anything, and no spy-fu was required - everyone just asked nicely, and they were given accounts. At most, one can allege theft of service, but that won't fly if the service was lawfully obtained through a valid contract with an adult.
But none of that matters if an entirely unrelated party, like the Italian prosecutor, wants to sue FB. The ToS is hardly relevant here because the Italian people did not sign those. What did they sign? They signed the corporate charter of FB, if it operates as an Italian company. That placed FB under the Italian law, and the Italy can sue per their domestic laws.
If FB is not an Italian company then they don't have jurisdiction. The prosecutor has to go to the court that does have it (somewhere in the USA, I presume) and, probably, allege a wrongdoing according to the US law. Otherwise the US court will not listen. Other countries may have weird laws, like prohibition of alcohol in Saudi Arabia. They are not entitled to barge in here and ask US courts to incarcerate pretty much everyone in the USA.
In this case, the Italian side will have to show that a violation of US law by FB likely occurred. Essentially they would report a crime to US authorities. This is super unlikely here.
A civil case would be much easier. For example, if you borrowed money from an Italian and refuse to return, the creditor can probably (IANAL) sue you in the US court. But I don't see how such a thing could fit here - Italy and FB (wholly US based) have no contracts between them that need to be arbitrated.
But I am not a lawyer, and I may know nothing about how the law really works. I am only testing the keyboard - as far as anyone knows :-)
Not a contradiction. Most of the Web does not require an explicit contract. You just go to the site and read the information. A small percentage of the Web does have an explicit contract that you accept by clicking that button. Some sites are in between; Slashdot is such a site. It has a contract, somewhere, but nobody reads it. It has accounts, but it doesn't verify anything that you put there. But you don't need to have an account to use the site, even for posting.
I was not bullied a lot and if I snapped, I would have killed the bully first.
Those are related items. The willingness to seriously hurt the bully is a major factor in bullies choosing someone else for their sadist exercises. Usually there is a suitable victim available.
In my experience, bullying ends just about the time when young people learn to defend themselves by dealing an unacceptable damage to the offender. Shortly after that bullying stops altogether because the victim can make a single phone call to the police and cause a ton of pain to the bully. Only children cannot call the police, and only children cannot carry a legal folder. A young man can do both.
Among others, you have to use your own name
I never signed up for FB, so I don't know - do they require an official verification that your name is what you say it is? I read that Google did such a thing, and was once given a photoshopped driver's license of James T. Kirk - and accepted it.
If they don't, there is an infinite supply of real names that are free for borrowing, from any culture and in any language.
did facebook force her to sign up? did facebook force her to get hammered and act a fool?
As far as I understand, the incident has nothing to do with her even having a FB account. The videographers who recorded her being drunk did have an account; but that has nothing to do with *their* privacy (such as of the account owner.)
In essence, FB is being sued for allowing someone else (the people who recorded the video) to post that video for everyone to see. That video was offensive to some other people. How would FB censors, even if FB had them, know what is and what isn't offensive?
In the end, it will be judged by the fact whether FB had a certain duty, and they failed at that duty. I suspect FB has no duty to watch users' videos. With regard to the contract, I am not sure if there was a contract. Most of the Web operates without an explicitly defined contract. It is hard to even establish competence over the Internet; and most services are free in every aspect. Can FB be guilty of giving access to a child? Depends on what that child said about his age. Most likely the EULA says "By clicking "Accept" I verify that I am of certain age and of legal age to form a contract." If the child did that, he misled the service provider and fraudulently obtained access to FB. The FB has no way to verify his age. It could be even impossible with EU's strict privacy laws.
I'm driving a hybrid, and I'd say it's the best *single* car you can buy. If you want to have two or more cars, then you may be better off with one gas car, or one truck, and one EV; then you can use each of them where they shine. But if you only have one car then only a hybrid will work. It is impossible to even contemplate (for me, at least) that I cannot go to a certain place just because the car is being charged, or because there is not enough range. My car will take me anywhere and at any time, and I am comfortable knowing that. A plug-in hybrid like Volt will work as an EV during short trips, so you get the best of both worlds. A pure EV today is just asking for trouble.
Exercise ... I don't know what you are talking about :-)
I'd love a full-electric car, with about 50-80 mile range, which could tow a trailer or hook up a hitch mounted rack with a generator in/on it for longer trips.
That would be GM Volt. The generator is inside, no need to tow it. The MSRP is $32K, which is also lower than most EVs. Volt is a true EV; the inbuilt ICE only runs a generator. Buy one today.
it should be pointed out that driving 350 miles (in any car) sucks. It means you are sitting in a chair, unable to do anything but watch the road in front of you, for 5+ tedious hours.
I drive 450 miles per day sometimes. If mere 350 miles suck for you, you are doing something wrong. To me, the drive is pleasing, relaxing, and entertaining. If you need more than just watching the road, you are always free to listen to the radio, a CD, or an audio book. If you have a cell phone you can hold a teleconference (over hands-free interface, of course!) If you have a ham radio you can talk on repeaters (no hands-free is required by law for that.)
Most people who need to go that far would prefer to take an airplane; and certainly anyone who can afford a Tesla can afford plane tickets.
The USA is a large country. You can fly to my destinations only in a GA airplane that can land onto a minimal strip. Some of my destinations have no airports of any kind nearby.
So I see the 300 mile range limit as largely a non-issue (outside of perception/marketing, anyway).
That is probably true. If you need to make such trips with any regularity, an EV is a wrong car to buy. A road trip not only requires enough charge to travel between charging stations; it only requires quick recharge at those stations. Currently only gas or diesel cars qualify for that.
If you set road trips aside, you will end up with a city car that can survive on 100-150 miles per charge. My own in-city trips are about 60-70 miles max, with 30 miles being typical. But watch for the hills - though a decent regen brakes will recoup a good portion of expended energy on the way down. But that works only if you live in the valley and climb the hills closer to the end of your trip.
The Fisker Hybrid fire you posted about wasn't from the EV components. It was theorized that it was from an exhaust component
Perhaps. But let me first talk about the fire that destroyed parked Karmas after they were flooded by a hurricane. They burned up because a short in the system, caused by conductive seawater. The ICE was not involved in that fire.
Now we can look back at the fire in the parking lot in Woodside, CA. Per the latest news, the fire was caused by a fan. In every standard car, the fan would not be under power when a vehicle is parked; and even then there would be a fuse. You can say that it's an outcome of a bad design, done by people who don't know a thing about making cars. (Outside of Henrik Fisker, we don't know who was and who wasn't good enough there.) Perhaps Karma's karma caught up with it.
It's the same that happened with Top Gear's review.
I did not mention that because, IMO and from what I know, it was a clear setup just for publicity and shock value.
I doubt that half the charge was 'lost', it was more likely under reported because the battery was cold, giving it the appearance of less capacity.
Per the evidence, it was lost. Tesla support people *thought* it was underreported, but all that the reporter did, per Tesla's advice, only led to further depletion of the battery. In the end, the car ended up on a flatbed. In hindsight, there was probably something that the reporter could do - like driving back to the supercharger right from the hotel. But he was advised to act differently.
Unless there's a spark it's not going to do anything
Tantalum capacitors will provide that spark aplenty.
I question the high discharge - water isn't that conductive
Water in rivers and ponds is quite conductive because it contains lots of salts that are leeched out of the soil. Agricultural runoff doesn't help either. In terms of the current, it all depends on how much surface is exposed to the water, and how much of that will etch away during the electrolysis. Of course, the seawater is an instant short.
There's far more than fuel from an IC car that will pollute the water.
There is very little of those other liquids, and many of them are alcohol-based, perfectly soluble in water. Only the gasoline has potential to harm the ecology. But when a car falls into a water, it's usually not damaged, so the gas tank will remain intact. Damage to fuel pipes will not result in pollution because the fuel pump is not running.
even if they don't trip DC doesn't electrocute people like AC does.
DC is just as dangerous as AC, on average. At those voltages (375V) the contact will result in 3rd degree burns (if you are lucky and the path doesn't go through the heart) or ... well, then you don't care anymore.
you might get a lithium fire underwater, but at least that's not horribly toxic.
Most of the Lithium will remain inside the battery, and the car will be lifted out of the water shortly. Any danger that comes from that battery will be short-term (emission of poisonous and/or explosive gases, and thermal effects on humans inside the car.) Water may not provide sufficient cooling because it is a reagent in the reaction that produces steam. Here is a good technical video that demonstrates what happens and what gases are generated. Here is the MSDS on LiOH - it will be in generated gases, and it will kill the occupants of the car if they breathe it in. LiOH has only a short window of danger, though, because it will quickly dissolve in water. Other generated gases will come
Ability to communicate over long distances did change the world - it was a disruptive technology, and it was not instantly accepted. Some (Amish) are still refusing it.
However telecommunication only gave you an additional ability. It took nothing from you. If you don't want to be disturbed, have no phone at home.
GG does give the wearer new abilities, just like it was with telephone users. However everyone else loses their privilege to be not seen, not recognized; to be forgotten. They cannot do anything to change that because GG users are ignoring their wishes. This thread is an excellent illustration of this problem.
GG users can go against the wishes of polite and honest people for a while. However there is a large subculture of people (we call them criminals and gangs) who do not get all that excited about being recorded. You think iPhone robberies are a bad thing? You have seen nothing yet. An iPhone can be carried in a pocket; good luck with carrying a GG that way. What will a gang do if you show up on "their turf" with a GG? Will they suddenly become model citizens?
There will be also a massive pushback (an outright prohibition) of GG in businesses. This is an ideal spy device, in case it's not obvious. Showing up at a research facility with GG would be a firing offense. Today you have to surrender your phones and cameras before entering a classified facility. Tomorrow you will not be allowed to wear a GG inside of most businesses. Even wearing a GG at a common garage may be not welcome because it may record something that the mechanic can regret later on. We all make mistakes; taping them is not something we appreciate.
Google Glass actually _helps_ here. If you were wearing one then you can show them exactly where you were at that time....
No, it does not do that. All it does is showing exactly where your GG was at that time. That makes a huge difference in court. A GG footage will never be accepted as evidence unless there is a way to prove identity - say, two GG that film each other.
Even that could be used only if the video was streamed in real time and timestamped by a 3rd party (Google HQ would be good enough.) If the video is locally recorded, forget it - the date and the time can be manipulated. It also will be a cool science project to take the GG apart and connect the SSD camera to an external recording device. This way a GG could be fed false video. For example, you could get a fake alibi by being filmed at a certain place (true place and time, confirmed by GPS) at a certain date (false - you were there a day before, but the hacked GG was fed yesterday's bits into today's live feed.) It only takes one such hack, made by only one person, to invalidate, in court's eyes, all recordings made by all users.
Besides, it just sounds ugly that we have to tape ourselves to protect us from false accusations. There are many small violations of law happening all the time - speeding by 3 mph over, jaywalking, not fully stopping at stop signs, and so on. Most of that is not dangerous. But if GG collects enough evidence, it's all prosecutable. Do you want to live in a Panopticon?
Dashcams are helpful if you want to present your side of the story. However there is a million dollar difference - the SD cards that these dashcams record onto are not streamed in real time to the cloud. They are simply overwritten after some number of hours. They forget. The GG forgets nothing.
The people at Google are not stupid.
What in the world makes you think so?
Google had made only one major invention, and that invention was of their search infrastructure, and it happened a while ago. It was significant.
However after that happened and Google got larger and richer, most of what they tried quickly crumbles and falls apart. Google Earth (not their invention) and StreetView (Google's invention, AFAIK) are good examples of their later successes, but even there they managed to f. up by recording other people's 802.11 payloads.
I can't remember off the top of my head anything else that Google was successful with. Perhaps Google Translate, though that usually generates comedy material (and is likely based on a COTS backend.) Google also used to have a decent web MUA, but nowadays even OWA is just as good.
The battery is a POS and its lucky to stay on for 10 seconds when the user isn't actively engaging it, and even then the charge won't last a day.
That's exactly how a disruptive idea is introduced. First you declare it to be harmless because of technical limitations or high cost. The society grudgingly accepts that. Then the technology improves, and the device becomes really dangerous - but it is already part of the society, with its own net of addicts and abusers. Opiates began as an exotic Asian treat that is available only to chosen few; read how the Count of Monte Cristo used them.
I just don't get your rampant paranoia, sorry.
You aren't a sysadmin, then :-)
Names and addresses and habits? Douchebag. That was never said.
Never said but always presumed. This is one of "selling points" of GG. It has no keyboard, but it is trivial to run a search on a name automatically and put it up in a corner.
I'm not talking about a "handful" of "friends" and "associates". I'm talking about everyone I've ever been introduced to. For most people, that is over 1,000 people.
Stupid me. I didn't realize that you want superhuman abilities.
There's off the shelf speciality products that can record your every move more covertly than this tool will ever do. So what exactly is your problem with this product specifically?
A specialized product costs a lot, requires skills to use, and won't be used against you without a good reason. If there is a good reason, you will be filmed and you won't know that.
A mass market product is cheap, requires no skill to use, and can be used against you for no reason and at any time. You will be immersed in the field of GG wearers, and you cannot identify any one of them that films you specifically; chances are that they are all filming you from time to time - not targeting you, of course. Human eyes have a limited zone of sharp vision - just a few degrees. Cameras have better lenses, and their sensors are good everywhere. Your activities will be captured from many points. Since GG streams video to the mothership, you have no idea how this video will be used, and by who. You can bet dollars to donuts that every TLA in the country is lining up to get a private feed of that video.
In other words, you are proposing to allow every kid in the country to carry a deadly knife just because, in theory, some of these kids can spend a lot of money and get a handgun.