You are incredibly confused. If anyone at the Nuremberg trials had disobeyed orders, they would have been punished internally. That's what is happening to Manning, because he broke the rules of military command. Either he gets punished for not following orders (his current situation) or punished for following orders (war crimes in your example). Two different things.
No one in any seat of power is going to forgive someone in their command if they just claim "Following orders doesn't make it right, so I'm not doing it." There is a procedure for objecting in the US military, Manning didn't follow it, he will be punished.
Whether he did the right thing, morally, is a completely different question, and he will be judged by history accordingly.
I held out for as long as I could. XBOX Live needs an update or it can't connect. Good, cancel.
Then it wouldn't even keep the correct time any more, so my save games were all out of order. Every game was some number of seconds from November something, 2001. "Continue" didn't work, I had to sift through them to load the right one. Play for 3 hours and that's the newest save, turn it off and play for 1 more hour, and that was the "oldest" of the saves,
So finally I updated, and I hate the everloving piss out of it. What took 5 blocks to move to the right (network settings) now stops 3-4 times on each "page", bloop bloop bloop bloop... tons of stuff I don't care about in my way.
To make it worse, Crackdown has a known problem that you can't re-play it. You have to delete the game data, and sometimes that makes it crash on load. So I did the only thing left - deleted my profile, and download it again. Except my profile was an offline one, and I downloaded an online profile. Not only did I lose all of my saves, now it asks me to sign in every time I want to do something.
No thanks, just remember what time it was. Is that too hard?
I, too, am a geek. But I don't speak for my company. And you might want to think twice before you speak for yours. While you are trying to do the right thing, I assure you, somewhere in your company the legal department is figuring out an appropriate response. The CEO is likewise either shitting his pants, or seeing dollar signs. Either way, its his call, not yours.
Personal feedback might be nice for you, but either the CEO falls on his sword or the lawyers win.
Also, your company swore that it listened to and confirmed a violation of the audio. I assume you take personal responsibility for that? That you had a hand in creating that system, know its failings, and would swear that it is imperfect?
Or maybe you just want to improve your software. It's a nice gesture, but quite out of place. A personal reply might have been better. Going public was probably not the best way to get better.
The entire point of the law was to stabilize wheat prices. If everyone grew their own wheat instead of buying it, wheat prices would have dropped to near 0, people would stop producing it, and those who were buying but not producing would increase demand and prices would shoot up. Opposite of what was intended.
It was a very simple decision that SCOTUS really didn't have much choice in. They did not consider whether the production qualified as local, this was already discussed in previous cases. Ultimately, the decision rested on the potential effect of people ignoring the production quotas and growing their own.
A law controlling interstate commerce is Constitutional because of the Commerce Clause, which allows regulation of interstate commerce. Filburn's argument was essentially that this is not the case. Maybe he should have had a different argument, but the one he made was not good enough to clear him.
The side effect was an encroachment of the powers of federal government, but that was not the decision at hand. Based on reading the decision, the court basically said "It should be obvious to anyone that Congress included home-grown wheat in the law, since without that price stabilization is not likely."
It makes a lot more sense if you actually read it. The later decisions that stemmed from it don't make sense, like Gonzales v. Raich, were a bit of a stretch. something that is not even supposed to be sold is under interstate commerce? No, but SCOTUS thinks so.
And on top of the other replies, keygens are usually made by disassembling the code and replicating the algorithm. No guessing, no trial and error, just figuring out what the code does. You can't easily get code out of a dongle, and it might be for some dedicated PLC that might not even make sense. So if the key check is in there, which it's probably not, there's a huge difference.
Usually it does a calculation and checks the outcome, as an example something simple like the Luhn algorithm for checking credit card numbers. Make a random CC number, and if it doesn't pass the result tells you what to change to make it pass (Mod 10 math).
Usually they are more complicated, you just have to work backwards. A keygen has to work relatively easily forward and backward. Remember, for every key checked, one must be generated. So it can't be something too crazy. It is not unknown, just hidden. Perhaps heavily obfuscated. But it can be read like a cake recipe - take this, put with this, and you get a valid key.
Used to be, you would see a lot of XORing, easily reversible calculations, so you just take the final result and do the same thing backwards and that's your input. Of course, you see fewer keygens these days because it gets more difficult with better algorithms - easier to just hack and patch. Plus, you release a keygen and thousands of junk sites pop up with "serialz" made with your keygen.
The watermarking idea is probably the best bet, track who uploaded the patched version. Most likely it will be a shallow-pocket customer and you won't get much other than knowing.
Let's not forget the shell. If you drag and drop huge numbers of files, Windows allows the program to do this:
For each file
Get the filename
Do some processing
For simple operations, this is fine. For processing that takes a while, the entire shell is locked up waiting for the program to release the HDROP. Far better to ask programs to just get the filenames and process from the list. But shouldn't the shell remain responsive?
And virus scanners, when something like FireFox has a huge SQLite history file that has to be scanned when it is accessed. The app is ready to go, but the hard disk is churning like a Norwegian making butter.
Or apps like VLC which use standard libraries, but those libraries are not already being used because you don't have a media player open. Then it loads everything you *might* need, instead of delay-loading. I've heard the latest release is faster but still has problems rebuilding the font cache, just in case the media has subtitles.
Not to mention a slow SharePoint site which you're never quite sure if it is opening that file you clicked on. And of course the online editing means the browser doesn't download the file, it passes the URL to Word or Excel which then opens it.
There are too many bottlenecks, some caused by the hard disk, libraries, operating system, background tasks... I'm sure there are similar problems with Linux. There are too many places to make mistakes - best to let the user know something is happening.
Most foreign nations are states, USA happens to be a collection of states. It would be equally true to say "The United States [of America] is..." because you are talking about the country as a single entity, or "The United States [of America] are..." because not every state is on board.
As you pointed out, people more generally assume you are talking about the country and not the collection of states when you say "United States" or "US", and therefore "is" has evolved to be the most natural fit.
Your link does nothing to settle the singular/plural question, it simply reflects common usage to refer to the country as a whole instead of the individual states together.
It became more common right before the War Between the States, and right after, having a clear difference of opinion, people referred to the states as an individual collection. After that anomaly, the trend resumed.
Depending on usage, either way is still correct. The only thing that changed is the assumption that we are talking about the country as a whole. That would be expected as a country matures. Considering that most of the country was a stable size by around 1850, then the anomaly, then Alaska was acquired, a case could be made that it is more a sign of geopolitical stability than anything related to grammar.
No. The final price is what you pay for the item. The receipt should spell out how much goes to the government. And tax rates are pretty clearly spelled out and public information, not hidden. Friendly warning, you're heading to nutter territory. A receipt without the price, tax, and total would be an issue between you and the store, and the "hidden government tax" you fear is more likely the store putting a tent pole in its profits.
Also, if you read more and typed less, you might figure out there are a few ways to adjust your withholding so that it comes out as close to even as possible. Most people seem to want that check, since they are unable to save money and allow the government to do it for them. The government might make a little extra money on the float, but the IRS, and Congress generally, wants it to come out as close to even as possible.
You're talking about a development from a time when sales tax didn't exist (or wasn't collected). There was a reason, but that is not the reason now.
Now, it is well-accepted that the "primacy effect" means that a $5.99 price will be mentally converted to "$5" and seen as cheaper. Most of this seems to be philosophical arguments rather than good hard science, but I'll leave that.
Although networkBoy mentions alternate reasons, these are usually store-specific, and still keep the price within a few pennies of the next dollar up. Walmart typically ends prices in.88 or.87 for the same reason, IIRC. The psychology there is two-fold. One, a $19.99 item is cheap at the Walmart price of $19.88. Two, for customers who don't really think about it, it is very easy to make people think $4.88 is better than $3.99 because it was "4 dollars or so" and Walmart is 11 cents less. There is an entire game show, "The Price Is Right", based on the idea that people don't know how much normal products typically cost (whevever they survey the prices, which tyically is not where the contestant lives).
They are still counting on getting as close to the next dollar without going over, no matter the reasons, due to the business schools teaching primacy.
You're using logic to counter belief. It's not going to work.
Also, Randi is not an impassive man of science and logic. He is trolling the believers, and trolling them hard. It is a thing of beauty, because people who tend toward logic will be on his side without even needing to see someone refuse. People who believe will get all frothy in the mouth and argue any shred of evidence that his methods are not "fair" or "real science".
When someone claims psychic powers, implicit in their claim is that they can do this only in their own way, and not by some artificial method corrupted by some contest and its rules. If I can give you a cold reading after sending people to mingle with you n the lobby and feeding me details, then that is what I claim. Only, since I have no reason to state what should be obvious (I repeated on stage exactly what you told someone in the lobby), I only claim the supernatural part, that I can cold read you.
Make no mistake, Randi is most definitely being a showman with this claim, and it *is* set up so that anyone who accepts the challenge will fail. Not because he sabotages their performance, but because he removes the air of mystery. Mistakes can't be glossed over, preparation work will be revealed, and all opportunities for trickery are eliminated.
Once you prove something, there is no room for belief. Make no mistake - even if someone were psychic to maybe 75% certainty on a coin toss (50% better than expected) they would not be rigorously tested. Because with belief, you can get that number up to "almost 100%" because people stop counting. With logic, the counting never stops. This is why I believe no one will ever claim his prize, *even if they are legit*.
Randi knows this, he is a zealot on the other side, and he is trolling hard.
Doesn't make him any less right, it just puts him clearly in the realm of logic, not belief.
I agree with one exception. The person who believes is in the realm of faith, and has no burden to, nor even reason to deal in, the realm of fact.
This may look like an argument where one side is accusing the other side of bad science. It's not. The giveaway is here: The side accusing the other side of using bad science is using bad science.
Let me rephrase. If I don't understand science enough to change my beliefs to match observation, and it is clear in my argument that I don't, then my argument is most likely an emotional one with phrases pulled from critics of my belief. Not science.
And when you argue against science with faith, there is no win. On either side. Neither side has the tools to change understanding in the opposite domain. It is impossible, and only someone who already leans in the opposite direction will be pulled across to the other domain. And in some cases, people will retain both understandings (cognitive dissonance) because they cannot change their understanding.
I take amoxicillin quite frequently for a certain reason (no, I'm not a porn star). I got the world's most annoying headache after my gf at the time went to the doctor for sinus problems.
Next day, she's perfect and I'm miserable. As it should be, right? Well, we aren't married.
Asked her what she took, azithromycin. I rummaged around in my pharmacy (I'm not perfectly healthy year round) and found a spare course. Took it, next day I'm perfect. I finished the course, of course of course.
I was already on Moxy, and it didn't stop nor prevent the problem. Zith did.
On a side note, I started a course of Moxy, and realized I didn't have enough. Before the doc got me set up with more, I went without for a few days. I don't want to be gross, but I got the most incredible fountain-butt diarrhea I can remember. Garden hose blasts with nothing more solid than Hi-C. I dig back in my stash and quickly fix the "traveller's diarrhea" I caused myself, with Xifaxan.
Antibiotics, used correctly, are quite possibly the wonder drugs of the 20th century, based on the number of lives and limbs saved. Used incorrectly, we will go extinct.
I just wish they would test for bacteria first. Obviously you needed them, but it's hard to tell from symptoms alone. I keep reading about faster and cheaper genetic testing. Or labs on a chip. When do we get the instant virus/bacterium differentiator?
Media stories like to get both sides to look balanced, and frequently shoehorn in an unsubstantiated quote just to make it look like they covered both sides. All it takes is one off-hand remark in an interview, and you bet it's going in the column. There's no doubt about it.
But it's important to direct your concern in the appropriate direction. You can't blame this one on Slashdot, at least no more than the usual click-generating sausage factory summaries.
As for classical music lovers, they feel it should be appreciated, and they feel uniquely qualified to appreciate it. Letting "the rabble" listen to it, without a chance to understand an appreciate it, cheapens it.
Personally, it annoys me to no end to hear some of the greatest music ever written played constantly, and perhaps by not-so-top-notch players. I become accustomed to it, and as with anything else it gives me no pleasure. And that is a shame. At the same time, once you have heard "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" for the hundredth time, maybe it's time to move on to something a bit more challenging. So I'm on both sides of the issue.
The same atmosphere could probably be created with Muzak, but it would cost more.
The benefits from marriage have not changed to them in any way. So for them, nothing changes. The status quo is upheld.
Logic does not apply here. Marriage is a sacred institution to these people, and being in the "married" club means being special. If they allow everyone in their club, it loses its exclusivity. Just like allowing black people into white country clubs, just like allowing women voting or in the workplace.
The fight does not come from them losing anything tangible or quantifiable, it comes from losing that feeling of being special.
I agree with you because I think about these things logically. I also cannot overlook divorced people who say they have changed their ways and now believe in the sanctity of marriage, because it doesn't make sense. But that's the whole point, sense is irrelevant.
That, in turn, is the basis of Santorum's argument that gay sex is no different from man-dog sex just because it's not the traditional man-woman sex. They both are outside of the "traditional" definition, and are therefore equally dirty and offensive, and should remain just as outlawed, if not just socially unacceptable. A false equivalence based on Santorum's personal beliefs. The same as claiming that Pakistan and China are un-American because they are not in America, and England is just as un-American for the same reason. Nonsense. And of course the implicit assumption that pro-American is the only patriotic value that anyone should hold.
And that's where the google-bomb started, Santorum spouting nonsense as if it were logical, and ignoring actual logic in the process.
If you signed a contract that says they can, it's probably not enforceable. Most likely, you did not sign such a contract.
You may have signed one, in your example, that says the house design is their property, because that's what you produce. Not houses. If so, it's up to you to prove that you are on the right side of the law, or that the contract is invalid somehow.
So what other industries do this? Anything that requires independent, creative thinking, the outcome of which could be patented or copyrighted, usually. Searching for "employer intellectual property ownership" gave a lot more info than I could possibly summarize.
Bottom line: it's complicated, and it depends on what you signed, who you work for, and where you live. This page is not a bad place to start.
You have opinions, which is nice. The original poster has a contract, signed and legal, which can be used to take whatever the employer desires from the employee. As idealist as you would like to be, unless OP gets out of this somehow, your opinions are irrelevant.
Given the contract in question, they are indeed being hired for their thinking ability. Places where you don't have to think, like entry level and manual labor, don't care what you think about.
Higher paying jobs usually require that you make decisions and do buzzwordy things like "drive innovation". When you have an idea about something new that could make money, that's innovation and your greedy employer wants a piece of it, or at least the right of first refusal.
That's the real world, and that's what we're talking about. Being self-employed, or in entry level or manual labor, or philosophizing, are all not on topic. If you have a thinking type job where your employer does *not* own your mind, great, you don't have the same problem as OP.
You are the FUD. The post you replied to specifically mentioned an act of which actual cases have been recorded. This was challenged in 2010, despite having been unofficially trimmed back in 2008. You inserted the "vast numbers of foreign visitors" part yourself so you would have something to attack. The articles linked contain 1 confirmed case of this happening, far less than the number of confirmed US seizures, and a suspected number which may equal the number of *confirmed* US seizures.
And at no point did anyone imply the same level of operation. We have the same certainty that it is possible now, having confirmed cases on both sides, and the same certainty that caution should be exercised in both countries.
The only reason why no have a "Travel Light to US" article is that it has essentially been covered here. And the news in this case isn't that it happened, it's that business essentially accepts it as a given that you will be spied on. As opposed to coming to America, where it is not yet a given. So no, not the same level, but that wasn't implied. "It has happened so you should plan on it happening" applies both ways.
Your question has been answered. There is no difference, there's just more of it.
I'm much more worried about how the U.S is allowing drones to be used by police agencies in this country to spy on us
I can't make a solid legal argument because it has not been tested. SCOTUS refused to rule on whether GPS tracking, as ean example of constant monitoring, is an invasion of privacy, solely because trespass was involved on placing it there. So the question of whether it is legal to record someone's movements constantly is an unresolved legal question.
It is not a foregone conclusion, as you seem to believe, that non-stop monitoring is perfectly legal. It will be done until it is challenged. Tracking software on top of automated drones makes it possible to track individuals going about their daily lives in fairly good detail at this point, were it allowed to continue. That level of detail is excessive compared to what law enforcement needs to do its job.
I happen to believe that the Constitution and Bill of Rights make it clear that as long as you're not bothering anyone, you're free to act unimpeded. When you start setting off enough flags that someone thinks you're doing something illegal, law enforcement will put together a warrant request and then are allowed to investigate. Constant monitoring, license plate tracking, internet interception, and all of the modern surveillance techniques are so far removed from what the Founding Fathers even considered that there is no way you can just assert it's fine without a court test.
In other words, the question is to you, to argue that this is not an invasion of privacy. Until it is answered by the courts, who have already trampled on just about everything else using a combination of terrorism and commerce clause to steamroll whatever we have left. One side pushes for more surveillance, the other pushes back, and then it gets resolved in a court. Until then you're going to have to bring more to the table than this as a defense.
I was going to mod you funny, but since I've already replied to an idiot let me just congratulate you on successfully applying Poe's law to Linux command line antics.
This sequence of events is the very definition of arcane, might as well be in place of the definition. Originally, it meant requiring secret information, such as incantations where you need to know someone who knows it in order to learn it. More typically, it is used to mean something hidden or mysterious, or not immediately available. Roughly speaking, of course.
Regardless of whether it's man pages or something on an internet page, you have to find the command, understand which command line flags are right for you, and possibly replace parts of the command with things specific to your distribution. That can get complicated, depending on whether you found a website for your distro.
You would be much better off making the point that these things are not required in modern distributions, or that people who use the command line a lot are probably going to be able to cope. And if it's something you already know then it's not suddenly "non-arcane" knowledge - you have just been initiated to the group that knows it.
The summary suggests the jury based their decision on the patent's validity determining the existence of our internet. This is a terrible idea, and most likely not what happened. The effect on a patent validity decision should not be a part of the process, and based on the article's description Tim had no business there giving any opinion. Only facts about what was in place at the time, as it pertains to prior art.
Also, the company only wanted money according to the article. It did not want to shut down the internet. So in this specific case, the same is true. It's irrelevant, and the 'what if' case should not be considered.
The question is simply, is the patent valid? And it obviously isn't. But that should be the story - why it's not valid. Not that it *might* kill the internet that we know and love today if it were valid.
Common sense is not a part of this - just the facts.
Slashdot Mirror
You are incredibly confused. If anyone at the Nuremberg trials had disobeyed orders, they would have been punished internally. That's what is happening to Manning, because he broke the rules of military command. Either he gets punished for not following orders (his current situation) or punished for following orders (war crimes in your example). Two different things.
No one in any seat of power is going to forgive someone in their command if they just claim "Following orders doesn't make it right, so I'm not doing it." There is a procedure for objecting in the US military, Manning didn't follow it, he will be punished.
Whether he did the right thing, morally, is a completely different question, and he will be judged by history accordingly.
I held out for as long as I could. XBOX Live needs an update or it can't connect. Good, cancel.
Then it wouldn't even keep the correct time any more, so my save games were all out of order. Every game was some number of seconds from November something, 2001. "Continue" didn't work, I had to sift through them to load the right one. Play for 3 hours and that's the newest save, turn it off and play for 1 more hour, and that was the "oldest" of the saves,
So finally I updated, and I hate the everloving piss out of it. What took 5 blocks to move to the right (network settings) now stops 3-4 times on each "page", bloop bloop bloop bloop... tons of stuff I don't care about in my way.
To make it worse, Crackdown has a known problem that you can't re-play it. You have to delete the game data, and sometimes that makes it crash on load. So I did the only thing left - deleted my profile, and download it again. Except my profile was an offline one, and I downloaded an online profile. Not only did I lose all of my saves, now it asks me to sign in every time I want to do something.
No thanks, just remember what time it was. Is that too hard?
I, too, am a geek. But I don't speak for my company. And you might want to think twice before you speak for yours. While you are trying to do the right thing, I assure you, somewhere in your company the legal department is figuring out an appropriate response. The CEO is likewise either shitting his pants, or seeing dollar signs. Either way, its his call, not yours.
Personal feedback might be nice for you, but either the CEO falls on his sword or the lawyers win.
Also, your company swore that it listened to and confirmed a violation of the audio. I assume you take personal responsibility for that? That you had a hand in creating that system, know its failings, and would swear that it is imperfect?
Or maybe you just want to improve your software. It's a nice gesture, but quite out of place. A personal reply might have been better. Going public was probably not the best way to get better.
The entire point of the law was to stabilize wheat prices. If everyone grew their own wheat instead of buying it, wheat prices would have dropped to near 0, people would stop producing it, and those who were buying but not producing would increase demand and prices would shoot up. Opposite of what was intended.
It was a very simple decision that SCOTUS really didn't have much choice in. They did not consider whether the production qualified as local, this was already discussed in previous cases. Ultimately, the decision rested on the potential effect of people ignoring the production quotas and growing their own.
A law controlling interstate commerce is Constitutional because of the Commerce Clause, which allows regulation of interstate commerce. Filburn's argument was essentially that this is not the case. Maybe he should have had a different argument, but the one he made was not good enough to clear him.
The side effect was an encroachment of the powers of federal government, but that was not the decision at hand. Based on reading the decision, the court basically said "It should be obvious to anyone that Congress included home-grown wheat in the law, since without that price stabilization is not likely."
It makes a lot more sense if you actually read it. The later decisions that stemmed from it don't make sense, like Gonzales v. Raich, were a bit of a stretch. something that is not even supposed to be sold is under interstate commerce? No, but SCOTUS thinks so.
I think this even appeared on slashdot a while back.Negative results need to be published.
http://www.arjournals.com/ojs/
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v470/n7332/full/470039a.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20110203
In fact, just google "publishing negative results" and you get piles of stuff that says it's good.
I know someone who had some surgery - they drained the fluid, fixed stuff, and re-filled the eye. In the process, they filtered out the floaters.
Maybe it was cataract, I don't remember. But yes, those can be removed. I doubt any doctor would do surgery just for those, of course.
I've seen much harder stuff added in just for the fun of it. If you're cracking something, adding a bit of code is most likely going to be trivial.
And on top of the other replies, keygens are usually made by disassembling the code and replicating the algorithm. No guessing, no trial and error, just figuring out what the code does. You can't easily get code out of a dongle, and it might be for some dedicated PLC that might not even make sense. So if the key check is in there, which it's probably not, there's a huge difference.
Usually it does a calculation and checks the outcome, as an example something simple like the Luhn algorithm for checking credit card numbers. Make a random CC number, and if it doesn't pass the result tells you what to change to make it pass (Mod 10 math).
Usually they are more complicated, you just have to work backwards. A keygen has to work relatively easily forward and backward. Remember, for every key checked, one must be generated. So it can't be something too crazy. It is not unknown, just hidden. Perhaps heavily obfuscated. But it can be read like a cake recipe - take this, put with this, and you get a valid key.
Used to be, you would see a lot of XORing, easily reversible calculations, so you just take the final result and do the same thing backwards and that's your input. Of course, you see fewer keygens these days because it gets more difficult with better algorithms - easier to just hack and patch. Plus, you release a keygen and thousands of junk sites pop up with "serialz" made with your keygen.
The watermarking idea is probably the best bet, track who uploaded the patched version. Most likely it will be a shallow-pocket customer and you won't get much other than knowing.
Let's not forget the shell. If you drag and drop huge numbers of files, Windows allows the program to do this:
For each file
Get the filename
Do some processing
For simple operations, this is fine. For processing that takes a while, the entire shell is locked up waiting for the program to release the HDROP. Far better to ask programs to just get the filenames and process from the list. But shouldn't the shell remain responsive?
And virus scanners, when something like FireFox has a huge SQLite history file that has to be scanned when it is accessed. The app is ready to go, but the hard disk is churning like a Norwegian making butter.
Or apps like VLC which use standard libraries, but those libraries are not already being used because you don't have a media player open. Then it loads everything you *might* need, instead of delay-loading. I've heard the latest release is faster but still has problems rebuilding the font cache, just in case the media has subtitles.
Not to mention a slow SharePoint site which you're never quite sure if it is opening that file you clicked on. And of course the online editing means the browser doesn't download the file, it passes the URL to Word or Excel which then opens it.
There are too many bottlenecks, some caused by the hard disk, libraries, operating system, background tasks... I'm sure there are similar problems with Linux. There are too many places to make mistakes - best to let the user know something is happening.
Most foreign nations are states, USA happens to be a collection of states. It would be equally true to say "The United States [of America] is..." because you are talking about the country as a single entity, or "The United States [of America] are..." because not every state is on board.
http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/collectivenoun.htm
As you pointed out, people more generally assume you are talking about the country and not the collection of states when you say "United States" or "US", and therefore "is" has evolved to be the most natural fit.
Your link does nothing to settle the singular/plural question, it simply reflects common usage to refer to the country as a whole instead of the individual states together.
It became more common right before the War Between the States, and right after, having a clear difference of opinion, people referred to the states as an individual collection. After that anomaly, the trend resumed.
Depending on usage, either way is still correct. The only thing that changed is the assumption that we are talking about the country as a whole. That would be expected as a country matures. Considering that most of the country was a stable size by around 1850, then the anomaly, then Alaska was acquired, a case could be made that it is more a sign of geopolitical stability than anything related to grammar.
No. The final price is what you pay for the item. The receipt should spell out how much goes to the government. And tax rates are pretty clearly spelled out and public information, not hidden. Friendly warning, you're heading to nutter territory. A receipt without the price, tax, and total would be an issue between you and the store, and the "hidden government tax" you fear is more likely the store putting a tent pole in its profits.
Also, if you read more and typed less, you might figure out there are a few ways to adjust your withholding so that it comes out as close to even as possible. Most people seem to want that check, since they are unable to save money and allow the government to do it for them. The government might make a little extra money on the float, but the IRS, and Congress generally, wants it to come out as close to even as possible.
It's called a W-4, and the IRS instructions, and position, are pretty clearly spelled out here.
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p919/index.html
You're talking about a development from a time when sales tax didn't exist (or wasn't collected). There was a reason, but that is not the reason now.
Now, it is well-accepted that the "primacy effect" means that a $5.99 price will be mentally converted to "$5" and seen as cheaper. Most of this seems to be philosophical arguments rather than good hard science, but I'll leave that.
Although networkBoy mentions alternate reasons, these are usually store-specific, and still keep the price within a few pennies of the next dollar up. Walmart typically ends prices in .88 or .87 for the same reason, IIRC. The psychology there is two-fold. One, a $19.99 item is cheap at the Walmart price of $19.88. Two, for customers who don't really think about it, it is very easy to make people think $4.88 is better than $3.99 because it was "4 dollars or so" and Walmart is 11 cents less. There is an entire game show, "The Price Is Right", based on the idea that people don't know how much normal products typically cost (whevever they survey the prices, which tyically is not where the contestant lives).
They are still counting on getting as close to the next dollar without going over, no matter the reasons, due to the business schools teaching primacy.
You're using logic to counter belief. It's not going to work.
Also, Randi is not an impassive man of science and logic. He is trolling the believers, and trolling them hard. It is a thing of beauty, because people who tend toward logic will be on his side without even needing to see someone refuse. People who believe will get all frothy in the mouth and argue any shred of evidence that his methods are not "fair" or "real science".
When someone claims psychic powers, implicit in their claim is that they can do this only in their own way, and not by some artificial method corrupted by some contest and its rules. If I can give you a cold reading after sending people to mingle with you n the lobby and feeding me details, then that is what I claim. Only, since I have no reason to state what should be obvious (I repeated on stage exactly what you told someone in the lobby), I only claim the supernatural part, that I can cold read you.
Make no mistake, Randi is most definitely being a showman with this claim, and it *is* set up so that anyone who accepts the challenge will fail. Not because he sabotages their performance, but because he removes the air of mystery. Mistakes can't be glossed over, preparation work will be revealed, and all opportunities for trickery are eliminated.
Once you prove something, there is no room for belief. Make no mistake - even if someone were psychic to maybe 75% certainty on a coin toss (50% better than expected) they would not be rigorously tested. Because with belief, you can get that number up to "almost 100%" because people stop counting. With logic, the counting never stops. This is why I believe no one will ever claim his prize, *even if they are legit*.
Randi knows this, he is a zealot on the other side, and he is trolling hard.
Doesn't make him any less right, it just puts him clearly in the realm of logic, not belief.
I agree with one exception. The person who believes is in the realm of faith, and has no burden to, nor even reason to deal in, the realm of fact.
This may look like an argument where one side is accusing the other side of bad science. It's not. The giveaway is here: The side accusing the other side of using bad science is using bad science.
Let me rephrase. If I don't understand science enough to change my beliefs to match observation, and it is clear in my argument that I don't, then my argument is most likely an emotional one with phrases pulled from critics of my belief. Not science.
And when you argue against science with faith, there is no win. On either side. Neither side has the tools to change understanding in the opposite domain. It is impossible, and only someone who already leans in the opposite direction will be pulled across to the other domain. And in some cases, people will retain both understandings (cognitive dissonance) because they cannot change their understanding.
Science says the same thing. Facts make people believe even more, especially when they contradict belief.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/
Sorry if it seems I have posted this before, you'd think more people would just let it go implied at this point, as common knowledge.
I take amoxicillin quite frequently for a certain reason (no, I'm not a porn star). I got the world's most annoying headache after my gf at the time went to the doctor for sinus problems.
Next day, she's perfect and I'm miserable. As it should be, right? Well, we aren't married.
Asked her what she took, azithromycin. I rummaged around in my pharmacy (I'm not perfectly healthy year round) and found a spare course. Took it, next day I'm perfect. I finished the course, of course of course.
I was already on Moxy, and it didn't stop nor prevent the problem. Zith did.
On a side note, I started a course of Moxy, and realized I didn't have enough. Before the doc got me set up with more, I went without for a few days. I don't want to be gross, but I got the most incredible fountain-butt diarrhea I can remember. Garden hose blasts with nothing more solid than Hi-C. I dig back in my stash and quickly fix the "traveller's diarrhea" I caused myself, with Xifaxan.
Antibiotics, used correctly, are quite possibly the wonder drugs of the 20th century, based on the number of lives and limbs saved. Used incorrectly, we will go extinct.
I just wish they would test for bacteria first. Obviously you needed them, but it's hard to tell from symptoms alone. I keep reading about faster and cheaper genetic testing. Or labs on a chip. When do we get the instant virus/bacterium differentiator?
You didn't read the quote, right under the "Portland says it works" sub-headline?
http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/138615169.html
Media stories like to get both sides to look balanced, and frequently shoehorn in an unsubstantiated quote just to make it look like they covered both sides. All it takes is one off-hand remark in an interview, and you bet it's going in the column. There's no doubt about it.
But it's important to direct your concern in the appropriate direction. You can't blame this one on Slashdot, at least no more than the usual click-generating sausage factory summaries.
As for classical music lovers, they feel it should be appreciated, and they feel uniquely qualified to appreciate it. Letting "the rabble" listen to it, without a chance to understand an appreciate it, cheapens it.
Personally, it annoys me to no end to hear some of the greatest music ever written played constantly, and perhaps by not-so-top-notch players. I become accustomed to it, and as with anything else it gives me no pleasure. And that is a shame. At the same time, once you have heard "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" for the hundredth time, maybe it's time to move on to something a bit more challenging. So I'm on both sides of the issue.
The same atmosphere could probably be created with Muzak, but it would cost more.
Logic does not apply here. Marriage is a sacred institution to these people, and being in the "married" club means being special. If they allow everyone in their club, it loses its exclusivity. Just like allowing black people into white country clubs, just like allowing women voting or in the workplace.
The fight does not come from them losing anything tangible or quantifiable, it comes from losing that feeling of being special.
I agree with you because I think about these things logically. I also cannot overlook divorced people who say they have changed their ways and now believe in the sanctity of marriage, because it doesn't make sense. But that's the whole point, sense is irrelevant.
That, in turn, is the basis of Santorum's argument that gay sex is no different from man-dog sex just because it's not the traditional man-woman sex. They both are outside of the "traditional" definition, and are therefore equally dirty and offensive, and should remain just as outlawed, if not just socially unacceptable. A false equivalence based on Santorum's personal beliefs. The same as claiming that Pakistan and China are un-American because they are not in America, and England is just as un-American for the same reason. Nonsense. And of course the implicit assumption that pro-American is the only patriotic value that anyone should hold.
And that's where the google-bomb started, Santorum spouting nonsense as if it were logical, and ignoring actual logic in the process.
No.
If you signed a contract that says they can, it's probably not enforceable. Most likely, you did not sign such a contract.
You may have signed one, in your example, that says the house design is their property, because that's what you produce. Not houses. If so, it's up to you to prove that you are on the right side of the law, or that the contract is invalid somehow.
So what other industries do this? Anything that requires independent, creative thinking, the outcome of which could be patented or copyrighted, usually. Searching for "employer intellectual property ownership" gave a lot more info than I could possibly summarize.
Bottom line: it's complicated, and it depends on what you signed, who you work for, and where you live. This page is not a bad place to start.
http://www.intellectualpropertylawfirms.com/resources/intellectual-property/patents/employee-employer-patent-inventor.htm
You have opinions, which is nice. The original poster has a contract, signed and legal, which can be used to take whatever the employer desires from the employee. As idealist as you would like to be, unless OP gets out of this somehow, your opinions are irrelevant.
Given the contract in question, they are indeed being hired for their thinking ability. Places where you don't have to think, like entry level and manual labor, don't care what you think about.
Higher paying jobs usually require that you make decisions and do buzzwordy things like "drive innovation". When you have an idea about something new that could make money, that's innovation and your greedy employer wants a piece of it, or at least the right of first refusal.
That's the real world, and that's what we're talking about. Being self-employed, or in entry level or manual labor, or philosophizing, are all not on topic. If you have a thinking type job where your employer does *not* own your mind, great, you don't have the same problem as OP.
You are the FUD. The post you replied to specifically mentioned an act of which actual cases have been recorded. This was challenged in 2010, despite having been unofficially trimmed back in 2008. You inserted the "vast numbers of foreign visitors" part yourself so you would have something to attack. The articles linked contain 1 confirmed case of this happening, far less than the number of confirmed US seizures, and a suspected number which may equal the number of *confirmed* US seizures.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/laptop-border-searches/
And at no point did anyone imply the same level of operation. We have the same certainty that it is possible now, having confirmed cases on both sides, and the same certainty that caution should be exercised in both countries.
The only reason why no have a "Travel Light to US" article is that it has essentially been covered here. And the news in this case isn't that it happened, it's that business essentially accepts it as a given that you will be spied on. As opposed to coming to America, where it is not yet a given. So no, not the same level, but that wasn't implied. "It has happened so you should plan on it happening" applies both ways.
Your question has been answered. There is no difference, there's just more of it.
I can't make a solid legal argument because it has not been tested. SCOTUS refused to rule on whether GPS tracking, as ean example of constant monitoring, is an invasion of privacy, solely because trespass was involved on placing it there. So the question of whether it is legal to record someone's movements constantly is an unresolved legal question.
It is not a foregone conclusion, as you seem to believe, that non-stop monitoring is perfectly legal. It will be done until it is challenged. Tracking software on top of automated drones makes it possible to track individuals going about their daily lives in fairly good detail at this point, were it allowed to continue. That level of detail is excessive compared to what law enforcement needs to do its job.
I happen to believe that the Constitution and Bill of Rights make it clear that as long as you're not bothering anyone, you're free to act unimpeded. When you start setting off enough flags that someone thinks you're doing something illegal, law enforcement will put together a warrant request and then are allowed to investigate. Constant monitoring, license plate tracking, internet interception, and all of the modern surveillance techniques are so far removed from what the Founding Fathers even considered that there is no way you can just assert it's fine without a court test.
In other words, the question is to you, to argue that this is not an invasion of privacy. Until it is answered by the courts, who have already trampled on just about everything else using a combination of terrorism and commerce clause to steamroll whatever we have left. One side pushes for more surveillance, the other pushes back, and then it gets resolved in a court. Until then you're going to have to bring more to the table than this as a defense.
I was going to mod you funny, but since I've already replied to an idiot let me just congratulate you on successfully applying Poe's law to Linux command line antics.
This sequence of events is the very definition of arcane, might as well be in place of the definition. Originally, it meant requiring secret information, such as incantations where you need to know someone who knows it in order to learn it. More typically, it is used to mean something hidden or mysterious, or not immediately available. Roughly speaking, of course.
Regardless of whether it's man pages or something on an internet page, you have to find the command, understand which command line flags are right for you, and possibly replace parts of the command with things specific to your distribution. That can get complicated, depending on whether you found a website for your distro.
You would be much better off making the point that these things are not required in modern distributions, or that people who use the command line a lot are probably going to be able to cope. And if it's something you already know then it's not suddenly "non-arcane" knowledge - you have just been initiated to the group that knows it.
The summary suggests the jury based their decision on the patent's validity determining the existence of our internet. This is a terrible idea, and most likely not what happened. The effect on a patent validity decision should not be a part of the process, and based on the article's description Tim had no business there giving any opinion. Only facts about what was in place at the time, as it pertains to prior art.
Also, the company only wanted money according to the article. It did not want to shut down the internet. So in this specific case, the same is true. It's irrelevant, and the 'what if' case should not be considered.
The question is simply, is the patent valid? And it obviously isn't. But that should be the story - why it's not valid. Not that it *might* kill the internet that we know and love today if it were valid.
Common sense is not a part of this - just the facts.