Well, the odds of the cop being set up on your residential street on that particular day is pretty close to zilch, so I wouldn't call paying the cop more effective.
In other words, you concede my point. Speed limits, and the enforcement of speed limits, do jack squat when it comes to safety.
So you're saying because a system doesn't catch *every* instance, we shouldn't bother trying to catch *any* instance?
And I refute the whole "cash grab" argument
No you don't. You contradict it. You don't refute anything.
(snip) Obvious money grab, nothing more or less.
The photo radars are just a way to extort money from a lot of people faster and easier than paying a cop to actually write the tickets.
I agree in your case, but it's not the fault of the photo radar - you said it yourself: the towns are being jackholes. I can sympathize - one of my neighboring towns likes to have all their speed limits about 10 kph less than standard as well.
But you know what? You know that they're doing it, so why aren't you slowing down? If that's your usual commute (and you know they like to speedtrap there), why are you still speeding through them?
(BTW, you might want to try contesting the tickets - if they're spamming them out they might not bother showing up to defend it.)
I know I'm a minority on this one, but I have zero problem with photo radar and red light cameras - it's more cost effective than paying officers to sit all afternoon on the side of the highway.
Damn right it's "cost effective". It's all about the money. And it has nothing to do with safety, so let's get that hammered out right up-front. Getting a ticket in the mail 3 days later dosen't stop some reckless driver from mowing little timmy down because they're doing 80 MPH in a residential neighborhood.
Well, the odds of the cop being set up on your residential street on that particular day is pretty close to zilch, so I wouldn't call paying the cop more effective.
I think the safety would be increased if there was *more* photo-radar cameras out there. Getting one ticket every six months or so if one thing. Getting three different tickets on the same day (because you sped all the way home and set off multiple traps)? That might get some people's attention.
And I refute the whole "cash grab" argument - at *worst*, it's a tax on stupid people. And if we can have a machine that just keeps dinging those stupid people, freeing up (or maybe paying for more!) police officers to chase down murderers and thieves? Sounds like a win to me.
Then you'd set a nice example of how to beat the system. Some terrorist could bring their/a baby on a flight and hide a bomb in their stroller/diaper etc..
Search the stroller, by all means. But let's take a moment and think about babies - where are they going to hide explosives? Asking the parents to change the diaper will pretty much cover the complete inventory of "where can you hide a bomb on a baby".
You don't even have to look in the diaper - it's pretty trivial to check if one is empty or full (as any parent will tell you)
Canada doesn't (at least didn't last time I flew).
Although I find it telling that the last time I did fly stateside (arrived in Vegas the day of the "bottle bomber" - that was wonderful news to wake up to, by the way), when we flew home to Canada a week later, the Canadian customs staff were *still* more through and inquisitive than the US folks - and this was a week after The Big Terrorist Threat.
Actually, for all the noise you Americans like to make about it being so easy for the Bad Guys to get into Canada, even as a Canadian I get questioned far more coming back to Canada than I ever do flying into the US.
(But that trip five years ago will be the last time I go stateside until you folks figure out that groping != security.)
I don't have a particular complaint about this, so long as they're checking just sobriety with cause. (And really, you can tell a drunk person from "hello" to get probably cause.)
Police cameras on the roads
I know I'm a minority on this one, but I have zero problem with photo radar and red light cameras - it's more cost effective than paying officers to sit all afternoon on the side of the highway. (Or, if you prefer - it frees up officers to look into more important crimes).
"Zero Tolerance" in schools
Show me a school that actually has zero tolerance, and I'll show you an empty building - all "zero tolerance" means is that the administration either is very sneaky about how they do discipline, or that discipline is a yes/no proposition - either you get in no trouble or you get expelled. The whole concept is horse-hockey.
Drug testing
Very overused in my opinion - unless you can show imminent harm, why do you (as my employer) care what I'm hopped up on during the weekend? (It's Dr. Pepper and rum, if you're curious). If I'm driving truck all day, then yes, let's make sure I'm clean. If I'm a desk monkey, then what's the point?
ID requirements for just about anything, including purchasing cough syrup
Agree with you here - although most of us just hand over those loyalty cards anyway, so picture ID is pretty redundant.
And the craziness will continue until the American people are willing to let a politician say "this security measure does both diddle and squat and is a waste of dollars - we're not going to do it anymore" without promptly getting stomped into fine paste with cries of "SOFT ON TERRORISM!"
Just for curiosity, why wouldn't it scale? Are Israeli airports that much smaller than American ones?
(Yes, you'd need more *total* people, because US has a higher total population. But you also have more police officers, firefighters, nurses, teachers, garbage collectors, etc...)
Remember - TSA is there to act as a deterrant as well. Even if they haven't stopped any hijacking/bombing attempts they may have deterred some. However, that's not to say that I agree with the extreme levels that TSA takes.
That has a certain ring of "magic rock", though. Or if you prefer, "security by wishful thinking".
Do they actually make you sign a contract? My cable company (Shaw) never did - the entire transaction was over the phone. And their "you can't cancel your service with us, you're locked in" argument went very downhill when they realized that they had Absolutely Nothing to back it up. (In my case the rep literally had "neglected" to mention any lock-in period, their loss.)
Has the "pray we don't alter the deal further" tactic been tested in court?
But Comcast isn't even blocking anything, so you don't actually have any point at all, just a lot of spittle-flecked invective aimed at... I can't tell. Businesspeople in general?
Correction: Comcast claims they're not blocking TPB. (Or more correctly, they deny that they are).
If no-one believes them, that speaks to their reputation.
Gotta disagree. The reason The Big Lie works as a tactic is that people aren't willing to put their foot down and say "that's a load of horseshit and you know it".
Of course, I found out right away that they DO have a bandwidth cap, 250gb per month. My account page has a meter on it.
So, did you call back and ask why your uncapped account has a cap? Pointing out that you did ask repeatedly and were assured there was no cap? Asking them to dig out the call recording (y'know, "for quality assurance purposes") to confirm that you were told that there was no cap?
Or, in short - did you actually do anything about it besides complaining here?
Don't own a PS3 (and not likely to ever own one - my PS2 works quite nicely thank you), so I can't say I care what they actually do, but...
What Sony will do is whatever the cheapest way to create the perception that they have "made things right" and prevent lawsuits. The consumer protection is the heavy lifting, so I would suspect that your choice of games (assuming you get a choice) will be whatever they could negotiate the best price for. (Think "bargain bin").
Obvious caveat: are they paying you sufficiently to compensate for owning your own gear (and will continue to pay that extra so you can replace/upgrade)? Then it's not such a bad gig. (Still makes me wonder why they're not just hiring a contractor, but hey - businesses are weird).
Personally, I'd list "OK, stop working and go read up on (new tech X)" to count as at least some form of "professional development", if not actual Training.
you are relying on references from you current company, somewhat tricky
I don't tell my boss, I ask my coworkers, who have little incentive to lie one way or the other.
I can't recall the last time I gave a "boss" as a reference - it's always a co-worker or friend who can vouch for me.
My current company (and I presume, most monolithic corporations these days) won't actually give a reference, beyond HR confirming hire/fire dates. (I believe the current policy is that *only* HR can give references; previously the only other question we were allowed to answer was "would you hire this person again").
In some ways, this is an advantage to job-seekers. I'm honest with interviewers - here are people I've worked with who I believe would give an honest (read: positive) appraisal of my skills. If your boss isn't allowed to answer the questions, no need to call them, right?
For example, they probably live behind electric gates and would charge the planter with criminal trespass.
I'm sure they have to stop at red lights eventually. (Or the grocery store, or any old place.)
Heck, except for the magnets, it's probably fairly inexpensive to build mock trackers and just start spamming them around rich neighborhoods. Let the local cops explain that one away...
Probably also important to note that the Raspberry Pi is a charity, and thus isn't trying to make money on the gizmo. Selling at cost sounds about right if the goal is to get these things everywhere.
Communism has never been practiced... on a national scale. Plenty of practicing communist groups exist and some of them have been around longer than the word communism.
Most households could be classified as communist.
Yes, that means your neighbors are practicing communists!
Oracle spams out 132 accusations where they say Google infringed on their seven patents.
Since one "hit" is a win for Oracle, Google must defend against all 132 accusations. (read: even if they're not infringing in 131 cases, if they're infringing on point #132, it's infringement).
Thus, Google is forced to spam hundreds of counterarguments.
The judge, correctly deducing that he would finish his career on this case if he has to preside over this mess, and also correctly deducing that Oracle is spamming, tells Oracle that they have to pick their three best claims. And to stop a repeat performance, he rules that the other 129 are auto-losses.
Google, once they are told what the three *actual* infringing claims are, gets to choose the eight prior arts that best defend against those three. (It's a bit odd that the number isn't nine - three for each claim - but that's neither here nor there). In balance of Oracle's auto-losses, Google is told that they can't use any other defenses past this point as well.
The logic is sound to my eyes - if Oracle can't win on their three best cases, odds are that they can't win on the other hundred-plus.
Near as I can see, this is a big win for Google - they've essentially won on 129 points by default, and can concentrate their resources on the remaining three.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, the odds of the cop being set up on your residential street on that particular day is pretty close to zilch, so I wouldn't call paying the cop more effective.
In other words, you concede my point. Speed limits, and the enforcement of speed limits, do jack squat when it comes to safety.
So you're saying because a system doesn't catch *every* instance, we shouldn't bother trying to catch *any* instance?
And I refute the whole "cash grab" argument
No you don't. You contradict it. You don't refute anything.
(snip) Obvious money grab, nothing more or less.
The photo radars are just a way to extort money from a lot of people faster and easier than paying a cop to actually write the tickets.
I agree in your case, but it's not the fault of the photo radar - you said it yourself: the towns are being jackholes. I can sympathize - one of my neighboring towns likes to have all their speed limits about 10 kph less than standard as well.
But you know what? You know that they're doing it, so why aren't you slowing down? If that's your usual commute (and you know they like to speedtrap there), why are you still speeding through them?
(BTW, you might want to try contesting the tickets - if they're spamming them out they might not bother showing up to defend it.)
I know I'm a minority on this one, but I have zero problem with photo radar and red light cameras - it's more cost effective than paying officers to sit all afternoon on the side of the highway.
Damn right it's "cost effective". It's all about the money. And it has nothing to do with safety, so let's get that hammered out right up-front. Getting a ticket in the mail 3 days later dosen't stop some reckless driver from mowing little timmy down because they're doing 80 MPH in a residential neighborhood.
Well, the odds of the cop being set up on your residential street on that particular day is pretty close to zilch, so I wouldn't call paying the cop more effective.
I think the safety would be increased if there was *more* photo-radar cameras out there. Getting one ticket every six months or so if one thing. Getting three different tickets on the same day (because you sped all the way home and set off multiple traps)? That might get some people's attention.
And I refute the whole "cash grab" argument - at *worst*, it's a tax on stupid people. And if we can have a machine that just keeps dinging those stupid people, freeing up (or maybe paying for more!) police officers to chase down murderers and thieves? Sounds like a win to me.
Then you'd set a nice example of how to beat the system. Some terrorist could bring their/a baby on a flight and hide a bomb in their stroller/diaper etc..
Search the stroller, by all means. But let's take a moment and think about babies - where are they going to hide explosives? Asking the parents to change the diaper will pretty much cover the complete inventory of "where can you hide a bomb on a baby".
You don't even have to look in the diaper - it's pretty trivial to check if one is empty or full (as any parent will tell you)
What about Canada?
Canada doesn't (at least didn't last time I flew).
Although I find it telling that the last time I did fly stateside (arrived in Vegas the day of the "bottle bomber" - that was wonderful news to wake up to, by the way), when we flew home to Canada a week later, the Canadian customs staff were *still* more through and inquisitive than the US folks - and this was a week after The Big Terrorist Threat.
Actually, for all the noise you Americans like to make about it being so easy for the Bad Guys to get into Canada, even as a Canadian I get questioned far more coming back to Canada than I ever do flying into the US.
(But that trip five years ago will be the last time I go stateside until you folks figure out that groping != security.)
Or checkpoints against drunk driving
I don't have a particular complaint about this, so long as they're checking just sobriety with cause. (And really, you can tell a drunk person from "hello" to get probably cause.)
Police cameras on the roads
I know I'm a minority on this one, but I have zero problem with photo radar and red light cameras - it's more cost effective than paying officers to sit all afternoon on the side of the highway. (Or, if you prefer - it frees up officers to look into more important crimes).
"Zero Tolerance" in schools
Show me a school that actually has zero tolerance, and I'll show you an empty building - all "zero tolerance" means is that the administration either is very sneaky about how they do discipline, or that discipline is a yes/no proposition - either you get in no trouble or you get expelled. The whole concept is horse-hockey.
Drug testing
Very overused in my opinion - unless you can show imminent harm, why do you (as my employer) care what I'm hopped up on during the weekend? (It's Dr. Pepper and rum, if you're curious). If I'm driving truck all day, then yes, let's make sure I'm clean. If I'm a desk monkey, then what's the point?
ID requirements for just about anything, including purchasing cough syrup
Agree with you here - although most of us just hand over those loyalty cards anyway, so picture ID is pretty redundant.
And the craziness will continue until the American people are willing to let a politician say "this security measure does both diddle and squat and is a waste of dollars - we're not going to do it anymore" without promptly getting stomped into fine paste with cries of "SOFT ON TERRORISM!"
Just for curiosity, why wouldn't it scale? Are Israeli airports that much smaller than American ones? (Yes, you'd need more *total* people, because US has a higher total population. But you also have more police officers, firefighters, nurses, teachers, garbage collectors, etc...)
Remember - TSA is there to act as a deterrant as well. Even if they haven't stopped any hijacking/bombing attempts they may have deterred some. However, that's not to say that I agree with the extreme levels that TSA takes.
That has a certain ring of "magic rock", though. Or if you prefer, "security by wishful thinking".
Do they actually make you sign a contract? My cable company (Shaw) never did - the entire transaction was over the phone. And their "you can't cancel your service with us, you're locked in" argument went very downhill when they realized that they had Absolutely Nothing to back it up. (In my case the rep literally had "neglected" to mention any lock-in period, their loss.)
Has the "pray we don't alter the deal further" tactic been tested in court?
But Comcast isn't even blocking anything, so you don't actually have any point at all, just a lot of spittle-flecked invective aimed at... I can't tell. Businesspeople in general?
Correction: Comcast claims they're not blocking TPB. (Or more correctly, they deny that they are).
If no-one believes them, that speaks to their reputation.
Gotta disagree. The reason The Big Lie works as a tactic is that people aren't willing to put their foot down and say "that's a load of horseshit and you know it".
Of course, I found out right away that they DO have a bandwidth cap, 250gb per month. My account page has a meter on it.
So, did you call back and ask why your uncapped account has a cap? Pointing out that you did ask repeatedly and were assured there was no cap? Asking them to dig out the call recording (y'know, "for quality assurance purposes") to confirm that you were told that there was no cap?
Or, in short - did you actually do anything about it besides complaining here?
Don't own a PS3 (and not likely to ever own one - my PS2 works quite nicely thank you), so I can't say I care what they actually do, but...
What Sony will do is whatever the cheapest way to create the perception that they have "made things right" and prevent lawsuits. The consumer protection is the heavy lifting, so I would suspect that your choice of games (assuming you get a choice) will be whatever they could negotiate the best price for. (Think "bargain bin").
Obvious caveat: are they paying you sufficiently to compensate for owning your own gear (and will continue to pay that extra so you can replace/upgrade)? Then it's not such a bad gig. (Still makes me wonder why they're not just hiring a contractor, but hey - businesses are weird).
Personally, I'd list "OK, stop working and go read up on (new tech X)" to count as at least some form of "professional development", if not actual Training.
you are relying on references from you current company, somewhat tricky
I don't tell my boss, I ask my coworkers, who have little incentive to lie one way or the other.
I can't recall the last time I gave a "boss" as a reference - it's always a co-worker or friend who can vouch for me.
My current company (and I presume, most monolithic corporations these days) won't actually give a reference, beyond HR confirming hire/fire dates. (I believe the current policy is that *only* HR can give references; previously the only other question we were allowed to answer was "would you hire this person again").
In some ways, this is an advantage to job-seekers. I'm honest with interviewers - here are people I've worked with who I believe would give an honest (read: positive) appraisal of my skills. If your boss isn't allowed to answer the questions, no need to call them, right?
For example, they probably live behind electric gates and would charge the planter with criminal trespass.
I'm sure they have to stop at red lights eventually. (Or the grocery store, or any old place.)
Heck, except for the magnets, it's probably fairly inexpensive to build mock trackers and just start spamming them around rich neighborhoods. Let the local cops explain that one away...
Probably also important to note that the Raspberry Pi is a charity, and thus isn't trying to make money on the gizmo. Selling at cost sounds about right if the goal is to get these things everywhere.
Actually, it's exactly what it's like.
If you get in a fight, you don't get to charge them with assault once for every punch. It's an all-or-nothing deal.
If Oracle can't win with their three best arguments, then the other 120 weren't very likely either.
If it makes you feel any better, I'd imagine the losing side will appeal on those grounds either way.
Communism has never been practiced... on a national scale. Plenty of practicing communist groups exist and some of them have been around longer than the word communism.
Most households could be classified as communist.
Yes, that means your neighbors are practicing communists!
At most the judge should have booted them off without prejudice.
It makes sense in this context - if it was without prejudice, then whoever lost would simply grab another handful and start the court case over again.
Here's my understanding of the progression:
Near as I can see, this is a big win for Google - they've essentially won on 129 points by default, and can concentrate their resources on the remaining three.
Charge more for engineering majors, but give the engineering professors more pay and don't pay the English professors squat...
Hate to break it to you, but most English professors don't get paid much anyway.
Want to fix it? Make student loans subject to bankruptcy laws.
Or you can be a bastard like they are up here, where they made student loans *exempt* from bankruptcy until seven years after graduation.
Universities are businesses. They'll charge were the money is; because, that's where the money is.
+1 Uncomfortable Truth