Yes, we're behind the US, and yes, sadly, it appears we're following in their footstep. But hey, if you don't like jackboots, do come here. In 10-20 years you could have citizenship and there's more chance in our system of voting the buggers out since we have mandatory preferential voting rather than voluntary first-past-the-post.:)
Oh, definitely. You always want to be very polite to the police, obey their lawful orders and never physically resist them in the lawful course of their duties (what's lawful? well, I suspect all you have to do is think about whether you'd like to end up in a court/hospital/coffin). Know your 4th and 5th Amendment rights (if you're in America) and how and when to use the phrases, "I do not consent to a search", "Am I being detained?" and "Am I free to go?" (again, if you're in America).
This isn't a bad thing. After all, if you're a law-abiding citizen with nothing to hide, anything else'd be wasting the cop's time on your own taxpayer dime.
But if you do ever happen to be in a casual conversation with an officer (I've known a few - good people), and you happen to tell them, "I have been advised by a police officer not to talk to the police," [1] and they say, "But that makes our job difficult!" you might reply, politely, "Sorry, blame the politicians and their endless tougher-on-crime-than-the-last-guy laws, putting more people in prison than Russia and China combined. That's what's making all our lives difficult." [2]
(but be careful about talking about any of those endless laws in particular, it could be a trap)
I think I agree with all but one of the statements in your post:
"Your fantasy futuristic free-content utopian vision does not justify breaking IP laws that society has agreed are valid for 230 years (and longer)."
How is that different (by more than severity) to:
"Your fantasy futuristic free-person utopian vision does not justify breaking slavery laws that society has agreed are valid for 230 years (and longer)."
I'll also state that while I agree with "the ends do not justify the means" in general, that with respect to IP laws both means and ends have been of dubious character from the very beginning (Stationers Company, etc). IP laws are economic duct tape, a "necessary evil" that only exists because we've so far failed to properly address the structural flaws. Instead? Bono, CTEA, DMCA, etcetera. More and more duct tape.
Since the GP stated "I'd allow the responsible ranching of Rhinos combined with sustainable horn harvest" and you stated "the horns grow back in 18-24 months, so you have to de-horn the animals repeatedly", how does that reduce (legitimate) supply?
If the poachers are killing de-horned animals out of spite even though they could get valuable horn by coming back in 18-24 months, thus (literally) killing off their own future profits, then they're the kind of people who "just want to watch the world burn" and they should be treated accordingly.
I prefer a combination of 2 and 3: The landowner must report on any archaelogical finds; the government must bear the cost of the preliminary inspection. If the government then declares the find is of public interest, the landowner gets first option on paying for a private dig and claiming anything found to donate or sell but not destroy. If the landowner declines this option then government should justly compensate the landowner according to the usual laws for eminent domain.
"Not being human" doesn't come with a giant post-it note. The Stanford [1], BBC [2] and Milgram [3] experiments make that grimly clear, and the Roman Catholic church (since you mention it) has a long history of colluding with temporal authorities and itself conducted institutional slavery at least as recently as 1996, when the last of the Magdalene asylums [4] was closed.
Whether you or anyone else would remain a good person if you were inclined to seek combined political/religious office and become President by Divine Right and Holy Commander-In-Chief of the most powerful military on Earth isn't something I ever want to find out. The historical record for combining secular and spiritual power is, even in the Roman Catholic church and with no pun intended, rather damning.
Only people from wealthy families can afford to pay the bills while working for free.
Bull. Students already basically do this by taking out a student loan. They already have a place to sleep, and food to eat. What additional costs are they incurring by doing an internship?
That would be the sum of any interest they're paying out on the loan plus any interest they're not making on the positive balance they'd have without the loan plus any lost opportunity costs incurred thereby.
Not saying theres no merit to a discussion about internship pay, but I know plenty of "non-wealthy" folks who do internships. Its not exactly a rare thing to see.
On the other hand, what does each of us mean when we think "non-wealthy"? It would be interesting to see the actual economic demographics of interns with respect to the overall population and to the poverty line. Mapped over generational time would be even more interesting.
Whistle blowing to a non-American entity with no authority to fix any of the problems being exposed is worse than stupid
And even worse is giving a person, with a dysfunctional history and known psych/identity issues, TS/SCI clearance and sending them to a foreign hole where they'll be exposed to - and expected to immerse their brain in - all the horrible ugly things that human-shaped things do in war and politics when they think nobody's watching who gives a damn, then expecting said person to objectively realise when their reactions to this are no longer objective.
From what I've read, Manning strikes me not as a "Hero" or a "Traitor" but as a flesh-and-bone train the military didn't just put on the tracks, they loaded the coal bin, fired the engine and removed the safety cutouts.
Agreed. On the other hand, the various experiments (Stanford, BBC) and real-life examples (Soviet Gulag, Abu Ghraib) amply demonstrate how quickly a prison system can jump into the handbasket if the checks and balances fail or are outright ignored.
Seems to me there's still plenty of room left, even just in what we know we don't know about physics, for multiple possibilities that we could crudely stick an "afterlife" label on; no need to cave in to the limited imaginations of the logically impaired!
Vale, Iain, and if you can send us a postcard from Infinite Fun Space, please do.:)
As Bush's supporters were blaming Clinton, whose supporters in turn had blamed Bush Snr, whose blamed Reagan, etc. The US strongly reminds me of a national-scale version of the Stanford and Milgram experiments, and unfortunately unlike a university study you can't simply terminate the experiment and send everyone off to counselling when you see it starting to derail. And we're well past "starting to".
Even under Bush the US already had the highest incarceration rate in the entire world (the rate has been accelerating sharply ever since the early 1980s); the US has also entrenched this "zero-tolerance" policy in its schools, despite the biological facts that children simply have even less impulse control than adults and learning ability under stress is inhibited (e.g. a kid whose family is dysfunctional or imprisoned will be stressed, goes to school where they have trouble learning and any poor judgement or venting of stress will be immediately punished, leading to more stress - a vicious circle).
Comment form ate my text. Didn't like the smaller-than sign. First paragraph should start: My apologies, I was referring to your use of larger drones in the 100 to 150 knot range, not the smaller <100 knots versions. The 40 knot speed refers to the average cruising speed of geese (approximating from http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/migratio/speed.htm).
My apologies, I was referring to your use of larger drones in the 100 to 150 knot range, not the smaller http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/migratio/speed.htm). Though even at, say, 80 knots... hmm, I made an error in my calcs, 88 lb at 150 knots hits 95 times harder, not 30. But I'm curious now, so I'll redo this based on actual* Luna (the drone in the video) and proposed Euro Hawk (Global Hawk variant that the German minister is/was pushing, and being criticised for in part because of ludicrous cost blowout) specs:
Goose, 13 pounds at 40 knots: 13*40^2 = 20800.
Luna drone, 88 pounds at 38 knots: 88*38^2 = 127072. Difference: 27x. You're right, anything short of a cabin hit is still very unlikely to be terminal.
Euro Hawk drone, 14950 pounds (empty) with a cruising speed of 310 knots: 14950*310^2 = 1436695000. Difference: 69075x. Um... it's as big as the smaller commercial aircraft I've been a passenger on. And they're refusing to add collision avoidance gear because it's "too expensive"?!
Yeah, you'd be pretty damn unlucky to get hit by one, but still, is it apt or tacky of me to start making "this ship is unsinkable" references?
*(well, "actual" for values of "I went and checked the sources listed by wikipedia, rather than just doing copy-pasta of wikipedia itself")
The drones can't come close to flying at "several hundred miles per hour" - except from the reference frame of the aircraft they're colliding with. Airliners are doing about 150 knots even shortly after takeoff and could be doing 300+ knots, in the opposite direction.
Also, a bird is not a rigid body and I seem to recall that kinetic energy is proportional to the _square_ of the velocity. That 88 pound 150 knot composite drone is hitting a _lot_ harder than a 13 pound 40 knot feathered meatsack. At least thirty times harder, even if the plane was still parked on ground.
Sure, losing one engine is okay when you've got spares, but if it hits the cockpit (or the tail in just the wrong way)? You are about to have a really bad day.
Okay, so the vast majority of Windows' target audience is end-users, yes? What some smug l33t folks call noobs or PEBKACs or ID10T errors, yes?
"Win-C" - and they'll know this how?
"Click the desktop background, press Alt-F4" - and they'll know this how?
"I don't even know what you are talking about" - might be referring to the panel that (sometimes) pops up when you push the mouse cursor all the way to the right border? which, I'll go again: and they'll know this how?
Windows 8 has some great stuff under the hood where the system folks have been allowed to do their thing, but the GUI design has an atrocious lack of visual cues.
And for whatever it's worth, the biggest gripes I've heard from my customers (a mix of urban and rural folk) are: the above atrocious lack of visual cues, requiring signing up to a MS online account to find and play the games in 8 that are ready-to-go in 7, and the removal of the DVD playback and the DVD Maker software that's in 7.
Parent said no such thing. Parent said "society needs to be restructured", not how. Why do you assume that's the only possible solution parent would be offering?
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Yes, we're behind the US, and yes, sadly, it appears we're following in their footstep. But hey, if you don't like jackboots, do come here. In 10-20 years you could have citizenship and there's more chance in our system of voting the buggers out since we have mandatory preferential voting rather than voluntary first-past-the-post. :)
I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice:
Oh, definitely. You always want to be very polite to the police, obey their lawful orders and never physically resist them in the lawful course of their duties (what's lawful? well, I suspect all you have to do is think about whether you'd like to end up in a court/hospital/coffin). Know your 4th and 5th Amendment rights (if you're in America) and how and when to use the phrases, "I do not consent to a search", "Am I being detained?" and "Am I free to go?" (again, if you're in America).
This isn't a bad thing. After all, if you're a law-abiding citizen with nothing to hide, anything else'd be wasting the cop's time on your own taxpayer dime.
But if you do ever happen to be in a casual conversation with an officer (I've known a few - good people), and you happen to tell them, "I have been advised by a police officer not to talk to the police," [1] and they say, "But that makes our job difficult!" you might reply, politely, "Sorry, blame the politicians and their endless tougher-on-crime-than-the-last-guy laws, putting more people in prison than Russia and China combined. That's what's making all our lives difficult." [2]
(but be careful about talking about any of those endless laws in particular, it could be a trap)
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
I just looked up "ghost pepper". I'd heard of the Scoville scale years ago. This one can hit a million. +1 Internets to you, AC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale
I think I agree with all but one of the statements in your post:
"Your fantasy futuristic free-content utopian vision does not justify breaking IP laws that society has agreed are valid for 230 years (and longer)."
How is that different (by more than severity) to:
"Your fantasy futuristic free-person utopian vision does not justify breaking slavery laws that society has agreed are valid for 230 years (and longer)."
I'll also state that while I agree with "the ends do not justify the means" in general, that with respect to IP laws both means and ends have been of dubious character from the very beginning (Stationers Company, etc). IP laws are economic duct tape, a "necessary evil" that only exists because we've so far failed to properly address the structural flaws. Instead? Bono, CTEA, DMCA, etcetera. More and more duct tape.
Since the GP stated "I'd allow the responsible ranching of Rhinos combined with sustainable horn harvest" and you stated "the horns grow back in 18-24 months, so you have to de-horn the animals repeatedly", how does that reduce (legitimate) supply?
If the poachers are killing de-horned animals out of spite even though they could get valuable horn by coming back in 18-24 months, thus (literally) killing off their own future profits, then they're the kind of people who "just want to watch the world burn" and they should be treated accordingly.
I prefer a combination of 2 and 3: The landowner must report on any archaelogical finds; the government must bear the cost of the preliminary inspection. If the government then declares the find is of public interest, the landowner gets first option on paying for a private dig and claiming anything found to donate or sell but not destroy. If the landowner declines this option then government should justly compensate the landowner according to the usual laws for eminent domain.
"Not being human" doesn't come with a giant post-it note. The Stanford [1], BBC [2] and Milgram [3] experiments make that grimly clear, and the Roman Catholic church (since you mention it) has a long history of colluding with temporal authorities and itself conducted institutional slavery at least as recently as 1996, when the last of the Magdalene asylums [4] was closed.
Whether you or anyone else would remain a good person if you were inclined to seek combined political/religious office and become President by Divine Right and Holy Commander-In-Chief of the most powerful military on Earth isn't something I ever want to find out. The historical record for combining secular and spiritual power is, even in the Roman Catholic church and with no pun intended, rather damning.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bbc_prison_study
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Asylum
Possibly a dumb question, but does that mean any site that removes spam or has a profanity filter becomes liable?
Well, at least you've lived up to your nickname.
That would be the sum of any interest they're paying out on the loan plus any interest they're not making on the positive balance they'd have without the loan plus any lost opportunity costs incurred thereby.
On the other hand, what does each of us mean when we think "non-wealthy"? It would be interesting to see the actual economic demographics of interns with respect to the overall population and to the poverty line. Mapped over generational time would be even more interesting.
And even worse is giving a person, with a dysfunctional history and known psych/identity issues, TS/SCI clearance and sending them to a foreign hole where they'll be exposed to - and expected to immerse their brain in - all the horrible ugly things that human-shaped things do in war and politics when they think nobody's watching who gives a damn, then expecting said person to objectively realise when their reactions to this are no longer objective.
From what I've read, Manning strikes me not as a "Hero" or a "Traitor" but as a flesh-and-bone train the military didn't just put on the tracks, they loaded the coal bin, fired the engine and removed the safety cutouts.
Agreed. On the other hand, the various experiments (Stanford, BBC) and real-life examples (Soviet Gulag, Abu Ghraib) amply demonstrate how quickly a prison system can jump into the handbasket if the checks and balances fail or are outright ignored.
To paraphrase Deus Ex, it's not the Gulag, but you can see it from here.
Seems to me there's still plenty of room left, even just in what we know we don't know about physics, for multiple possibilities that we could crudely stick an "afterlife" label on; no need to cave in to the limited imaginations of the logically impaired!
Vale, Iain, and if you can send us a postcard from Infinite Fun Space, please do. :)
Technically, the United States only has the highest documented incarceration rate of any country on the planet.
It's suspected that North Korea has a comparable rate, and that the Soviet Gulags under Stalin post-WW2 were a little worse.
This is, of course, what's known as "damning with faint praise".
(commence armchair assessment)
As Bush's supporters were blaming Clinton, whose supporters in turn had blamed Bush Snr, whose blamed Reagan, etc. The US strongly reminds me of a national-scale version of the Stanford and Milgram experiments, and unfortunately unlike a university study you can't simply terminate the experiment and send everyone off to counselling when you see it starting to derail. And we're well past "starting to".
Even under Bush the US already had the highest incarceration rate in the entire world (the rate has been accelerating sharply ever since the early 1980s); the US has also entrenched this "zero-tolerance" policy in its schools, despite the biological facts that children simply have even less impulse control than adults and learning ability under stress is inhibited (e.g. a kid whose family is dysfunctional or imprisoned will be stressed, goes to school where they have trouble learning and any poor judgement or venting of stress will be immediately punished, leading to more stress - a vicious circle).
Key word being "degenerates". The non-degenerate alternative to parasitism is symbiosis.
Comment form ate my text. Didn't like the smaller-than sign. First paragraph should start: My apologies, I was referring to your use of larger drones in the 100 to 150 knot range, not the smaller <100 knots versions. The 40 knot speed refers to the average cruising speed of geese (approximating from http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/migratio/speed.htm).
My apologies, I was referring to your use of larger drones in the 100 to 150 knot range, not the smaller http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/birds/migratio/speed.htm). Though even at, say, 80 knots... hmm, I made an error in my calcs, 88 lb at 150 knots hits 95 times harder, not 30. But I'm curious now, so I'll redo this based on actual* Luna (the drone in the video) and proposed Euro Hawk (Global Hawk variant that the German minister is/was pushing, and being criticised for in part because of ludicrous cost blowout) specs:
Goose, 13 pounds at 40 knots: 13*40^2 = 20800.
Luna drone, 88 pounds at 38 knots: 88*38^2 = 127072. Difference: 27x. You're right, anything short of a cabin hit is still very unlikely to be terminal.
Euro Hawk drone, 14950 pounds (empty) with a cruising speed of 310 knots: 14950*310^2 = 1436695000. Difference: 69075x. Um... it's as big as the smaller commercial aircraft I've been a passenger on. And they're refusing to add collision avoidance gear because it's "too expensive"?!
Yeah, you'd be pretty damn unlucky to get hit by one, but still, is it apt or tacky of me to start making "this ship is unsinkable" references?
*(well, "actual" for values of "I went and checked the sources listed by wikipedia, rather than just doing copy-pasta of wikipedia itself")
Okay, points taken. I'll mellow.
The drones can't come close to flying at "several hundred miles per hour" - except from the reference frame of the aircraft they're colliding with. Airliners are doing about 150 knots even shortly after takeoff and could be doing 300+ knots, in the opposite direction.
Also, a bird is not a rigid body and I seem to recall that kinetic energy is proportional to the _square_ of the velocity. That 88 pound 150 knot composite drone is hitting a _lot_ harder than a 13 pound 40 knot feathered meatsack. At least thirty times harder, even if the plane was still parked on ground.
Sure, losing one engine is okay when you've got spares, but if it hits the cockpit (or the tail in just the wrong way)? You are about to have a really bad day.
Okay, so the vast majority of Windows' target audience is end-users, yes? What some smug l33t folks call noobs or PEBKACs or ID10T errors, yes?
"Win-C" - and they'll know this how?
"Click the desktop background, press Alt-F4" - and they'll know this how?
"I don't even know what you are talking about" - might be referring to the panel that (sometimes) pops up when you push the mouse cursor all the way to the right border? which, I'll go again: and they'll know this how?
Windows 8 has some great stuff under the hood where the system folks have been allowed to do their thing, but the GUI design has an atrocious lack of visual cues.
And for whatever it's worth, the biggest gripes I've heard from my customers (a mix of urban and rural folk) are: the above atrocious lack of visual cues, requiring signing up to a MS online account to find and play the games in 8 that are ready-to-go in 7, and the removal of the DVD playback and the DVD Maker software that's in 7.
Yes, it was the '50s when the CIA kicked out the democratically elected government and installed their puppet, not the '70s.
Parent said no such thing. Parent said "society needs to be restructured", not how. Why do you assume that's the only possible solution parent would be offering?
Hmm. So an app to scan them and warn you if you're about to buy a service or product on the shitlist of more than x% of users?