An illuminating comment from one of the speakers quoted in the linked article was "We do not believe that you can remove 'content' from the Internet, and if you do this, what is there left? Basically, the Internet then is a set of empty pieces and boxes.” (Bertelsmann [Worldwide Media, I presume])
The Internet is much more than just a content delivery network for the recording industry and the news media. As with many constructs, however, I fear that it is viewed by all with a subjective POV and for those media corporations, their subjective POV is focused on only their understanding of the value of the Internet. The danger inherent in this subjectivity is that very powerful interests can bring about controls and restrictions that are, from their subjective POV, very reasonable. However, these same controls and restrictions may be extremely harmful to other interests and considered unreasonable by those with a different subjective POV. Perhaps the best manner in which to argue against controls and restrictions being sought by the tunnel-visioned but powerful is to illuminate the full range of communications made possible by the Internet and to show how the proposed controls and restrictions would unreasonably have harmful effects on important aspects of that full range of communications.
A separate, but related argument, is that the business opportunities that technology brings may also be taken away by newer technology. I'm thinking specifically here of the recording industries. Prior to the invention of audio and video recording technologies, there was no business in recording and selling the playback of audio and video "works of art" - all such works had to be performed by real-life artists every time the work was "sold" to an audience. Once a means to permanently store and playback recordings of these works existed, an industry formed to take advantage of it. I suspect that this industry directly destroyed the ability of many performance artists to make a living. Now new technology makes it possibly infeasible to spend a fortune making a recording of a work of art, because that recording can "escape" the confines within which it can be sold over and over again to recoup the initial investment. If true, live performances may make a comeback as big-budget productions dwindle. Why should the recording industry receive preferential treatment in order to maintain a business model that was created by technology and has perhaps now been destroyed by technology? Why shouldn't live performers regain their importance as the sun sets on the recording industry?
It seems to me that since copyright and patent protections are created by society in order to benefit society (and don't exist as any "natural right"), there has to be an argument about the bettering of society more so under one scheme than another. Is there an argument to be made that society will be worse off without big budget motion pictures and albums from major recording studios, and hence we need to protect their business model even though these protections may wreak havoc on the free expression of ideas within society (another benefit to society, which is enhanced by rather than threatened by the Internet)?
Businesses are owned by people. The property of a business is private property. Government cannot enter upon private property without a warrant. All of the inspections that you mention require arrangements for inspection, some with penalties if the inspections are denied, but all require some kind of process surrounding the inspection. Not a blanket permit for the police(!) to walk through the business looking for violations of law.
Be sure to read the second referenced article about the Indiana Supreme Court decision before condemning those folks protesting most vociferously at the legal jurisprudence here. SB 550 may be warrantless searches of commercial facilities, but the Indiana decision is all about you and your home.
I'm also surprised that people might be in favor of permitting police to inspect the disc replication plants even if they are commercial businesses. A business premise is private property and the property owner has rights accordingly. The police have not, in the past, been generally permitted to enter any private property, business or not, without a warrant. This seemingly paves the way for future legislation that allows police to be able to enter any business premise for the purpose of determining whether a violation of law is occurring. That is specifically the kind of "fishing expedition" that the requiring a warrant is supposed to deter. How about the police being able to enter into your factory to make sure that none of your workers are stealing from you, whether you want them there or not, without a warrant? How about the police being able to enter your office building and look through your books to make sure you are reporting all of your revenue properly for tax purposes, without a warrant?
In other words, what principle separates the police action being permitted by SB 550 from any other such "inspection" action that might be undertaken by policy to ensure a law, some law, any law - is not being broken? If there is no such delineating principle, when what exactly was the intent of the framer's of the US Constitution when they added in the 4th Amendment?
Quoting from the inset document in one of the articles, "In the 1920s, legal scholarship began criticizing the right [to resist unlawful entry by a police officer] as valuing individual liberty over physical security of the officers."
At what point in the history of the United States did "legal scholarship" become an authoritative source of law capable of destroying inherent natural rights not granted by the US Constitution but specifically called out as examples of existing rights such as those expressed in the 4th amendment such as "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures..." To say that there is no right to resist an unlawful entry (and arrest) because there are now "after the fact" remedies available that may not have been available to those in the 18th century misses the point that unlawful entry and arrest can be just as effectively used to suppress and intimidate now as it was then. Exercising remedies to get out of jail after an unlawful arrest takes time and money, time spent in jail and fighting an unlawful arrest takes away from time required to earn a living (try missing 2 weeks of work and income - see what happens to your bills and your job), and the stain of the arrest may take a long time to fade, if in fact it ever does.
Without *some* possibility of a negative consequence to an unlawful entry and/or arrest, what is left to hold police back from engaging in whatever related conduct they so choose, so long as they know that their superior officers (who aren't elected officials) won't hold them at fault or punish them?
Due to emergency I have temporarily invoked martial law.
Trucks will be dispatched to the homes of registered firearm owners to secure them for the safety of the people
We urge parents to keep their children indoors as unregistered protests will be seen as violation of martial law
You raise an important point.
What types of government-initiated actions will become possible when the government believes that a means to communicate immediately to all citizens exists?
Without such an emergency communications system, the fact that a message could not be sent to a broad cross-section of the population with any level of assurance of reception has some inhibitory effect on attempted control actions by government representatives against the population. With such an emergency communications system, will there be an increase in situations where the government attempts to "take control" (with dire penalties for disobedience) made possible by the existence of the emergency communications system?
Changes in technology often remove undocumented "governors" from processes that have unforeseen (usually unintended) consequences. Will this be one of them?
I do appreciate your enlightening me, as I try to work my way out of my ignorant state. I'm not sure what you mean by "financial independence" not being achievable even if one saved the savings from not having a $75/month cell phone for 10 years - if you mean "not having to work" financial independence, then of course that wouldn't be achievable in that fashion. But that kind of financial independence isn't achievable for most people. Spending $75/month on a cell phone when much of that money could be saved (or spent on other necessities like food) is irresponsible in my book, whether it will or will not achieve financial independence. The attitude that one might well as not try to economize because the result is too small an amount to add up to anything is a defeatist attitude that will get one nowhere.
As for gas taxes, property taxes for renters, so-called sin taxes, and regulatory fees - I consider them all part of the cost of the good or service, for better or worse. When I look at the average cost of gas across the US, for example, as being $3.95/gallon (or whatever it is today) I don't look at the non-tax portion as one price, and then look at the tax separately. I doubt many people do, as the manner in which these taxes are paid is structured so as to be undifferentiated from the purchase price. It is true that these are taxes, however, and since a greater portion of a smaller income goes towards buying necessities, I can see that the taxes on these necessities, although not usually exceeding 8% to 10% of the purchase price, will add up to a greater percentage of income overall assuming that the higher income person doesn't spend all of their income but rather saves some. However, its not clear to me where that break point is, or to what extent the higher income people are spending all of their income anyway (making them pay just as high a percentage of tax) especially given the rather low average rate of savings that is often quoted for citizens of the US. How does that affect your argument?
I don't appreciate your putting words in my mouth, however. I did not say that everyone who is "poor" is just fine. I said that many who are considered "poor" today aren't as poor as those who were considered "poor" 40 years ago, or in developing as opposed to developed countries. I didn't even bring up the subject of investing - I'm not sure who put that chip on your shoulder. However, since you brought it up: There are ways to invest money that don't wipe out the amount saved when the "next bubble pops." In fact, for most people who saw precipitous declines in their investments after the housing bubble popped, they also saw their balances regain their previous levels after a couple of years, assuming that they didn't sell off the investments in a panic when the fecal matter hit the fan. Although their investments didn't increase in value over that couple of years, they weren't wiped out, either. In fact, if they continued to put their hard-won savings (even just a little bit) into their investments while prices were depressed, they saw a tremendous increase in value as those investments recovered all of their former values and then some. I'm not arguing that investing is for everyone, just against your premise that anyone investing will be wiped out by bubbles. If that were true, why aren't all the rich folks who receive most of their income from capital gains (in order to avoid as much income tax as possible) wiped out?
My family was poor when I was a child. I'm not poor now. I live in a nice house and don't worry about where the money for next month's bills will come from, although I do drive an 11-year old car and don't have a cell phone or cable TV. Out of my 4 siblings, two would be considered poor by today's measure. One is truly poor; he has consistently spurned work and chased after "get rich quick" schemes, leaving him with not much at all. He and his wife scrape by. The other is poor by measured income for his size household, yet owns a decent house, is warm in the
Some things never change. A couple thousand years ago a guy said something along the lines of "those who have will have more, those who don't will lose what they have".
I think it's pathetic that the rich are complaining about taxes. It's the poor who pay a substantial percentage of their incomes in taxes. I saw a thing on Fox yesterday about how the very rich are paying more and more in taxes -- well, duh. They're the only ones whose incomes are rising, of course their tax bill will (and should) rise as well.
The poor get screwed by everyone. It's a lot easier to steal with a pen than it is with a gun, provided you have the resources.
Interesting. I saw an article in a newspaper last week claiming that 45% of Americans don't pay federal income taxes, mostly those with lower incomes. I'm not sure how that reconciles with the claim that the poor "pay a substantial percentage of their incomes in taxes." Sure, in the United States there are other taxes, including state income taxes and sales taxes, but sales taxes generally top out at 6% to 8% or so, and those not paying federal income taxes probably pay little or no state income taxes. High income tax payers who receive their income as long-term capital gains might pay as low as 17% to 22% or so (see VP Biden's tax returns), while those with non-capital gain income who play the game well have the AMT to catch them at about 26% (see Pres. Obama's tax returns). [I calculated these tax rates by dividing federal tax paid by adjusted gross income to achieve an overall tax percentage.] I welcome factually information that helps explore/explain your position, as I have a genuine interest in understanding the situation.
I also read an article last week talking about how the "poor" were now likely to have only one phone, a cell phone, at an average cost of $75/month instead of maintaining both a land line and a cell phone (because that was "too expensive"). I was puzzled at the implied choice, as a land line can be had in most places at a cost much lower than $75/month (more like $15 to $20 for a "lifeline" no-frills phone service). Is someone really poor if they can afford a $75/month cell phone instead of a $15-$20/month land line?
There are, of course, a wide range of incomes for people in the United States. But I suspect that the standard of living among even much of what is considered "poor" in the United States (and other developed countries) is far advanced from what it was 40 years ago (when I was poor and growing up on welfare in a single-parent, "working mom" household) and from what it is in other parts of the world today. I think we need to differentiate "poor" that results in a threat of malnutrition and death due to conditions of inadequate shelter from "poor" that translates into "I can't buy everything my neighbors can buy."
One of the clients willing to pay for GPL licensed software is the US government. There is a belief in some circles in some agencies that any free software must be filled with security risks, but if you pay money for software, it will have far fewer security risks. (Or perhaps the belief is that if you pay money for it, and it has a security problem, you can somehow hold the person to whom you paid your money responsible in some ill-defined mystical manner [which I personally believe is unlikely to stand up to the lawyer-priests and their spells of plausible deniability].) This belief holds even if the software you buy is exactly the same as the software you download for free. The act of paying money for the software is part of a ritual magic that imbues the purchased code with magical proofs against security risks. Try it!
One agency's staff developed a means of achieving efficiency of cost under this magical system. They buy Red Hat Linux, which magically imbues every single piece of free software packaged with the Red Hat Linux distribution with the magical protection against security risks. Even those pieces of free software from normally untouchable sources [i.e., distribution points clearly recognized as being outside the boundaries of the United States].
Rituals such as this are apparently an important part of the "defense in depth" strategy for protecting critical infrastructure. Or is that security-theatre writ large? I always get them confused.
Leaving your router open is a Bad Idea. Yeah, off in magical happy fairy land where your theoretical legal protections actually matter it'd be great if everyone left their routers open. But reality shows that your protections aren't worth squat and you should lock up your router so you don't get punished for what people do on your network.
I agree strongly that leaving your router open is a Bad Idea, at least with the present assumed architecture of most home networks. The Wireless Access Point (WAP) for such networks is generally located *inside* the protected domain boundary (aka the "broadband router"/NAT device/sortof firewall) that protects that home network from the evils of the Internet. Allowing strangers direct access to the soft and chewy goodness of your home network is a certifiably insane thing to do, and that is where most people's home wireless access point will put those strangers if not protected through encryption, MAC ID filtering, and (if available) 802.1x access control.
For those with the technical know-how, a few extra bucks, and the altruistic motivation to do so, it is certainly possible to put a WAP *outside* of your protected boundary, with a separate (and protected/encrypted) WAP inside of your boundary. With such an architecture, one would then be able to start the debate of whether you the owner of that publicly-accessible WAP would in fact be responsible for any misuse of it, and whether or not your ISP's "terms of service" actually allowed you to provide such a service.
The hybrid autonomous underwater vehicle "Nereus" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nereus_(underwater_vehicle) and http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=10076 uses ceramic ball technology for buoyancy, and it's been down in the Challenger Deep, so the idea of a ceramic ball withstanding the pressure is credible. However, Nereus uses a large number of little ceramic balls, not one large (people-holding) ceramic ball, so there is some testing to be done, I think!
i really don't get why this has to be measured in feet. If you must use imperial system, wouldn't 8 furlongs, 5 chains and 10 yards sound nicer?
btw, my daily ride to work is 2 735 000 centimetres long.
In the United States, we eschewed the "imperial" system of measurement (look up the American Revolution), and kept just the bits that we liked (in some cases, we kept the name but changed how much it represented from the imperial measures - quantities like "gallons", "pints", and "fluid ounces;" confusion to the enemy, sir!). So we use feet and miles, not furlongs and chains. What I thought was wrong with the description was the lack of a comparison to the height of the Empire State Building or the Sears Tower, or even Mt. McKinley. You know, something that the average US citizen can relate to in terms of magnitude.
I am also frustrated at the picture quality of Internet streaming media. Comparing streaming Internet media to digital cable isn't the best comparision to make; digital cable typically compresses the living daylights out of program material... streaming may look better than digital cable, but it doesn't hold a candle to a Bluray Disc.... why spend the $$ on a high-def TV and then watch no better than standard def streaming material?
Terrestrial broadcast High Def is typically a great picture (from major networks who aren't also compressing the material). Netflix HD is ok, but doesn't come anywhere near the ability of the "HD" display technology from what I have seen. Other streaming media sources don't even come close to Netflix HD, unfortunately.
I ditched my DirecTV subscription several years ago, and we watch broadcast TV, RedBox rental DVD/Bluray, and some streaming media now. We tried out HuluPlus recently, but wasn't thrilled enough by the picture quality of the content or by the occasional hiccups in delivery to my Sony Bluray Disc/Internet streaming media player to subscribe. I think the promise is there, but the data rates for true HD (never mind Bluray) are still problematic for the Internet delivery infrastructure.
Hmmm. Interesting. In Maryland, USA we took over a space (subletting from the original tenant) and had the original tenant pay (before we would sign the lease agreement) to replace the telephone/network cabling infrastructure because it had been cut by the previous subleasing tenant. The cabling infrastructure is a necessary component of a modern office building, just like plumbing and electrical wiring.
I think TFA was probably being overly kind to say that the practice involves unused wires... Here in the United States the practice seems to include any kind of copper wire they think they can get away with taking, including completely stripping a local county athletic field of the underground copper for the lights TWICE in quick succession.
I didn't mean to imply that one should only eat fruits and vegetables. I meant only that one would not suffer an over-intake of a nutritional element from eating as much of them as one wants.
I've always liked this dietary advice: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
For those who are interested, here is an essay to help explain that advice (in the event that it seems underwhelming). I only reference this essay to explain the dietary advice, not because I do or don't advocate listening to the writer in general.
Hmmm. I don't think that the label "junk food" is dependent on how much or how often you consume it or whether the ingredients are "natural", but rather the nutritional values of the food. Foods containing significant quantities of nutrients that the human body only needs in small amounts are "junk food." If you can control your intake of these foods so that you end up with an overall balanced diet, then you have eating well despite the occasional indulgence in "junk food." If you can't control your intake of these foods, you will suffer the ill effects of these "junk foods." The major elements to watch out for are salt, sugars, and fats. In the habitat in which the human animal evolved, these elements were hard to come by in large quantities, but were nutritionally valuable. Now they are readily available, still nutritionally valuable, but still only required in relatively small amounts.
In fact, just because a food is made with "natural ingredients" doesn't mean its not junk food. Humans are now well-skilled at taking things found in nature in small concentrations and processing them to significantly increase the concentration (or finding other animal products with the same effect, such as honey). We "crave" these elements because it was a successful evolutionary strategy when they were scarce. Evolution doesn't happen at a fast enough pace to accommodate for the fact that they aren't scarce at all now and its no longer useful for us to crave them.
Consider fruits and vegetables. Eat as much as you like of these, and I don't think you will have health problems. They are not "junk food" - you can't consume enough of them to suffer from over-intake of their nutritional elements.
Although I haven't seen the details of this particular case, I don't think your conclusion is the only possible one.
My conclusion was that Judge Davis thought "You have valid patents, but you have not shown that the technology that Apple is using infringes on those patents. Have a nice day."
I agree that the article cited is of questionable value and use. However, I'm not sure EMV is the best example for demonstrating improved security through a modified end-user experience.
EMV may improve security some, but more importantly for the purveyors, it shifts liability... from Wikipedia "The supposed increased protection from fraud has allowed banks and credit card issuers to push through a 'liability shift' such that merchants are now liable (as from 1 January 2005 in the EU region) for any fraud that results from transactions on systems that are not EMV capable.[2] For transactions in which an EMV card is used, the cardholder is assumed to be liable unless they can unquestionably prove they were not present for the transaction, did not authorize the transaction, and did not inadvertently assist the transaction through PIN disclosure."
Authentication can be defined as the process of proving an identity. One question to ask is what identity is being proven? Does the concept of identity even have meaning outside of a relationship between two parties?
We like to believe that we each are ourselves, which is our sense of identity. But who are we, anyway? We could define our identity as being the child of our (presumably two) parents - but this just pushes the problem off one generation - what is the identity of our parents? This could be taken back as far as necessary to establish an identity chain that would make it unlikely to find conflicts. We can also define our identity as being the individual born in a certain location at a certain date/time, and we feel this is probably unique because it is unlikely that there were more than one individual born at the same date/time in the same location (assuming the location is localized enough). But are these identities really meaningful? Are they what is really necessary?
In most circumstances, its not who you are that is important, but your relationship with another party that matters. For example, my college didn't necessarily care who I was while I was in attendance there, but rather that the person who took all of the courses and exams, building up an academic record, was the same person to whom they granted a degree upon my satisfactory completion of a particular course of study. In some sense, the US IRS doesn't care who you are (the child of Julius and Ethel, for example) but rather that the single individual who made income from a set of income sources paid the taxes that they owe based on current tax law for that income. And the US Social Security system cares mostly that the individual who paid a certain amount on Social Security fees over their lifetime for income earned is the same person to whom they are cutting a Social Security check in retirement. And so on...
Is it really meaningful to seek a single ID and authentication of that ID for use with numerous parties, who are really only interested in establishing your relationship to a particular credit account, or taxpayer ID, or student it? What risks might be involved in constructing such a singularly important ID?
I studied this problem while working for a major US federal agency that would have found it very useful to have a trustable electronic ID for every US citizen a few years ago. When I studied it, I pointed out possible risks that the public might perceive in this scheme. These included the idea that the US federal government could easily link all federal records for an individual together using such an ID, the US federal government could require all transactions with the US federal government to be made under this ID, and so on. In other words, it would be a key aspect of putting together a surveillance state. I didn't think (then) that most people would go for it.
Things may have changed, now... if enough people in the US are fed up with having separate identities and credentials for each on-line service they use, either socially or for business, they might be willing to let the US federal government take on the role of proofing identity. US citizens already accept that role with the standard state-issued government ID (a driver's license) and the standard federally-issued ID (the passport) that is required for virtually all significant identity-proofing transactions. Would they accept it for electronic transactions as well?
Of course, the difference with the current system is that the records of using the identity-proofing service (showing a driver's license or passport) are only in the hands of the people to whom we prove our identity. Under an electronic system, unless it is designed to preclude centralized logging, the US federal government would have a record of every time the ID was used. Yikes?
Do we trust no one by trusting everyone just a little, or do we trust just one?
Unless individuals can be counted upon to safely and securely hold on to the private half of a public key pair, any federated identity proofing service will have the ability to masquerade as any of the individuals for whom they prove identity, I think. (Please clarify my thinking if I'm wrong.)
If a federated identity proofing service can masquerade as me, I've got to trust that they (and all of their employees) won't do this, no matter what the enticement.
I take the risk, now, that my brokerage firm won't pretend to be me and make trades in my account. I take the risk, now, that my bank won't disburse money from my account and claim that I did it. I take the risk, now, that any other firm with whom I do business under the guise of an identity proofed by them that they won't enact transactions on my behalf and claim that I did it.
Am I willing to take those same risks, in a federated identity world, all in the hands of a single identity proofing service provider?
Pick several name brand manufacturers of machines that will run Windows natively. Figure out which machines from their lineup are "business class" machines (i.e., not the cheap consumer-class stuff with fantastic looking specs but that don't hold up in the long run). From these, find the ones that have the peripheral support you want (USB, Bluetooth, 802.11 a/g/b/n, video cards, resolutions, etc.) For basic needs, probably most business class machines will have what you need built-in (businesses tend to want to buy hardware once, not buy and then add crap on later). Compare price/Mhz to make sure you are not out at the bleeding edge of the performance curve (i.e., paying too much for the best speed possible) - sometimes the best pricing is in the middle of the pack, sometimes its on the model they want to clear out because a new leader is on the way. If you have the time/want to torture yourself, take the time to understand which processors are used in which. Make sure your final choices have enough memory (or that you have a plan to add quality aftermarket memory more cheaply). If you want an extended support agreement, throw in the cost of that as well. With this winnowed down list, read reviews. Make sure that any reviews you read are a) about the exact model you plan to buy, and b) are by people who aren't complete idiots.
Pick the one of these that you feel best about buying after reading some reviews, looking at the prices, etc. Then don't look at any new ads. Whatever you buy will be much cheaper in 6 months, why torture yourself?
Slashdot Mirror
An illuminating comment from one of the speakers quoted in the linked article was "We do not believe that you can remove 'content' from the Internet, and if you do this, what is there left? Basically, the Internet then is a set of empty pieces and boxes.” (Bertelsmann [Worldwide Media, I presume])
The Internet is much more than just a content delivery network for the recording industry and the news media. As with many constructs, however, I fear that it is viewed by all with a subjective POV and for those media corporations, their subjective POV is focused on only their understanding of the value of the Internet. The danger inherent in this subjectivity is that very powerful interests can bring about controls and restrictions that are, from their subjective POV, very reasonable. However, these same controls and restrictions may be extremely harmful to other interests and considered unreasonable by those with a different subjective POV. Perhaps the best manner in which to argue against controls and restrictions being sought by the tunnel-visioned but powerful is to illuminate the full range of communications made possible by the Internet and to show how the proposed controls and restrictions would unreasonably have harmful effects on important aspects of that full range of communications.
A separate, but related argument, is that the business opportunities that technology brings may also be taken away by newer technology. I'm thinking specifically here of the recording industries. Prior to the invention of audio and video recording technologies, there was no business in recording and selling the playback of audio and video "works of art" - all such works had to be performed by real-life artists every time the work was "sold" to an audience. Once a means to permanently store and playback recordings of these works existed, an industry formed to take advantage of it. I suspect that this industry directly destroyed the ability of many performance artists to make a living. Now new technology makes it possibly infeasible to spend a fortune making a recording of a work of art, because that recording can "escape" the confines within which it can be sold over and over again to recoup the initial investment. If true, live performances may make a comeback as big-budget productions dwindle. Why should the recording industry receive preferential treatment in order to maintain a business model that was created by technology and has perhaps now been destroyed by technology? Why shouldn't live performers regain their importance as the sun sets on the recording industry?
It seems to me that since copyright and patent protections are created by society in order to benefit society (and don't exist as any "natural right"), there has to be an argument about the bettering of society more so under one scheme than another. Is there an argument to be made that society will be worse off without big budget motion pictures and albums from major recording studios, and hence we need to protect their business model even though these protections may wreak havoc on the free expression of ideas within society (another benefit to society, which is enhanced by rather than threatened by the Internet)?
Businesses are owned by people. The property of a business is private property. Government cannot enter upon private property without a warrant. All of the inspections that you mention require arrangements for inspection, some with penalties if the inspections are denied, but all require some kind of process surrounding the inspection. Not a blanket permit for the police(!) to walk through the business looking for violations of law.
Be sure to read the second referenced article about the Indiana Supreme Court decision before condemning those folks protesting most vociferously at the legal jurisprudence here. SB 550 may be warrantless searches of commercial facilities, but the Indiana decision is all about you and your home.
I'm also surprised that people might be in favor of permitting police to inspect the disc replication plants even if they are commercial businesses. A business premise is private property and the property owner has rights accordingly. The police have not, in the past, been generally permitted to enter any private property, business or not, without a warrant. This seemingly paves the way for future legislation that allows police to be able to enter any business premise for the purpose of determining whether a violation of law is occurring. That is specifically the kind of "fishing expedition" that the requiring a warrant is supposed to deter. How about the police being able to enter into your factory to make sure that none of your workers are stealing from you, whether you want them there or not, without a warrant? How about the police being able to enter your office building and look through your books to make sure you are reporting all of your revenue properly for tax purposes, without a warrant?
In other words, what principle separates the police action being permitted by SB 550 from any other such "inspection" action that might be undertaken by policy to ensure a law, some law, any law - is not being broken? If there is no such delineating principle, when what exactly was the intent of the framer's of the US Constitution when they added in the 4th Amendment?
Quoting from the inset document in one of the articles, "In the 1920s, legal scholarship began criticizing the right [to resist unlawful entry by a police officer] as valuing individual liberty over physical security of the officers."
At what point in the history of the United States did "legal scholarship" become an authoritative source of law capable of destroying inherent natural rights not granted by the US Constitution but specifically called out as examples of existing rights such as those expressed in the 4th amendment such as "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures..." To say that there is no right to resist an unlawful entry (and arrest) because there are now "after the fact" remedies available that may not have been available to those in the 18th century misses the point that unlawful entry and arrest can be just as effectively used to suppress and intimidate now as it was then. Exercising remedies to get out of jail after an unlawful arrest takes time and money, time spent in jail and fighting an unlawful arrest takes away from time required to earn a living (try missing 2 weeks of work and income - see what happens to your bills and your job), and the stain of the arrest may take a long time to fade, if in fact it ever does.
Without *some* possibility of a negative consequence to an unlawful entry and/or arrest, what is left to hold police back from engaging in whatever related conduct they so choose, so long as they know that their superior officers (who aren't elected officials) won't hold them at fault or punish them?
Due to emergency I have temporarily invoked martial law. Trucks will be dispatched to the homes of registered firearm owners to secure them for the safety of the people We urge parents to keep their children indoors as unregistered protests will be seen as violation of martial law
You raise an important point.
What types of government-initiated actions will become possible when the government believes that a means to communicate immediately to all citizens exists?
Without such an emergency communications system, the fact that a message could not be sent to a broad cross-section of the population with any level of assurance of reception has some inhibitory effect on attempted control actions by government representatives against the population. With such an emergency communications system, will there be an increase in situations where the government attempts to "take control" (with dire penalties for disobedience) made possible by the existence of the emergency communications system?
Changes in technology often remove undocumented "governors" from processes that have unforeseen (usually unintended) consequences. Will this be one of them?
I do appreciate your enlightening me, as I try to work my way out of my ignorant state. I'm not sure what you mean by "financial independence" not being achievable even if one saved the savings from not having a $75/month cell phone for 10 years - if you mean "not having to work" financial independence, then of course that wouldn't be achievable in that fashion. But that kind of financial independence isn't achievable for most people. Spending $75/month on a cell phone when much of that money could be saved (or spent on other necessities like food) is irresponsible in my book, whether it will or will not achieve financial independence. The attitude that one might well as not try to economize because the result is too small an amount to add up to anything is a defeatist attitude that will get one nowhere.
As for gas taxes, property taxes for renters, so-called sin taxes, and regulatory fees - I consider them all part of the cost of the good or service, for better or worse. When I look at the average cost of gas across the US, for example, as being $3.95/gallon (or whatever it is today) I don't look at the non-tax portion as one price, and then look at the tax separately. I doubt many people do, as the manner in which these taxes are paid is structured so as to be undifferentiated from the purchase price. It is true that these are taxes, however, and since a greater portion of a smaller income goes towards buying necessities, I can see that the taxes on these necessities, although not usually exceeding 8% to 10% of the purchase price, will add up to a greater percentage of income overall assuming that the higher income person doesn't spend all of their income but rather saves some. However, its not clear to me where that break point is, or to what extent the higher income people are spending all of their income anyway (making them pay just as high a percentage of tax) especially given the rather low average rate of savings that is often quoted for citizens of the US. How does that affect your argument?
I don't appreciate your putting words in my mouth, however. I did not say that everyone who is "poor" is just fine. I said that many who are considered "poor" today aren't as poor as those who were considered "poor" 40 years ago, or in developing as opposed to developed countries. I didn't even bring up the subject of investing - I'm not sure who put that chip on your shoulder. However, since you brought it up: There are ways to invest money that don't wipe out the amount saved when the "next bubble pops." In fact, for most people who saw precipitous declines in their investments after the housing bubble popped, they also saw their balances regain their previous levels after a couple of years, assuming that they didn't sell off the investments in a panic when the fecal matter hit the fan. Although their investments didn't increase in value over that couple of years, they weren't wiped out, either. In fact, if they continued to put their hard-won savings (even just a little bit) into their investments while prices were depressed, they saw a tremendous increase in value as those investments recovered all of their former values and then some. I'm not arguing that investing is for everyone, just against your premise that anyone investing will be wiped out by bubbles. If that were true, why aren't all the rich folks who receive most of their income from capital gains (in order to avoid as much income tax as possible) wiped out?
My family was poor when I was a child. I'm not poor now. I live in a nice house and don't worry about where the money for next month's bills will come from, although I do drive an 11-year old car and don't have a cell phone or cable TV. Out of my 4 siblings, two would be considered poor by today's measure. One is truly poor; he has consistently spurned work and chased after "get rich quick" schemes, leaving him with not much at all. He and his wife scrape by. The other is poor by measured income for his size household, yet owns a decent house, is warm in the
Some things never change. A couple thousand years ago a guy said something along the lines of "those who have will have more, those who don't will lose what they have".
I think it's pathetic that the rich are complaining about taxes. It's the poor who pay a substantial percentage of their incomes in taxes. I saw a thing on Fox yesterday about how the very rich are paying more and more in taxes -- well, duh. They're the only ones whose incomes are rising, of course their tax bill will (and should) rise as well.
The poor get screwed by everyone. It's a lot easier to steal with a pen than it is with a gun, provided you have the resources.
Interesting. I saw an article in a newspaper last week claiming that 45% of Americans don't pay federal income taxes, mostly those with lower incomes. I'm not sure how that reconciles with the claim that the poor "pay a substantial percentage of their incomes in taxes." Sure, in the United States there are other taxes, including state income taxes and sales taxes, but sales taxes generally top out at 6% to 8% or so, and those not paying federal income taxes probably pay little or no state income taxes. High income tax payers who receive their income as long-term capital gains might pay as low as 17% to 22% or so (see VP Biden's tax returns), while those with non-capital gain income who play the game well have the AMT to catch them at about 26% (see Pres. Obama's tax returns). [I calculated these tax rates by dividing federal tax paid by adjusted gross income to achieve an overall tax percentage.] I welcome factually information that helps explore/explain your position, as I have a genuine interest in understanding the situation.
I also read an article last week talking about how the "poor" were now likely to have only one phone, a cell phone, at an average cost of $75/month instead of maintaining both a land line and a cell phone (because that was "too expensive"). I was puzzled at the implied choice, as a land line can be had in most places at a cost much lower than $75/month (more like $15 to $20 for a "lifeline" no-frills phone service). Is someone really poor if they can afford a $75/month cell phone instead of a $15-$20/month land line?
There are, of course, a wide range of incomes for people in the United States. But I suspect that the standard of living among even much of what is considered "poor" in the United States (and other developed countries) is far advanced from what it was 40 years ago (when I was poor and growing up on welfare in a single-parent, "working mom" household) and from what it is in other parts of the world today. I think we need to differentiate "poor" that results in a threat of malnutrition and death due to conditions of inadequate shelter from "poor" that translates into "I can't buy everything my neighbors can buy."
One of the clients willing to pay for GPL licensed software is the US government.
Sorry! Replace "GPL licensed" with "free" as my comment was intended to apply not only to GPL-licensed software but all types of free software.
One of the clients willing to pay for GPL licensed software is the US government. There is a belief in some circles in some agencies that any free software must be filled with security risks, but if you pay money for software, it will have far fewer security risks. (Or perhaps the belief is that if you pay money for it, and it has a security problem, you can somehow hold the person to whom you paid your money responsible in some ill-defined mystical manner [which I personally believe is unlikely to stand up to the lawyer-priests and their spells of plausible deniability].) This belief holds even if the software you buy is exactly the same as the software you download for free. The act of paying money for the software is part of a ritual magic that imbues the purchased code with magical proofs against security risks. Try it!
One agency's staff developed a means of achieving efficiency of cost under this magical system. They buy Red Hat Linux, which magically imbues every single piece of free software packaged with the Red Hat Linux distribution with the magical protection against security risks. Even those pieces of free software from normally untouchable sources [i.e., distribution points clearly recognized as being outside the boundaries of the United States].
Rituals such as this are apparently an important part of the "defense in depth" strategy for protecting critical infrastructure. Or is that security-theatre writ large? I always get them confused.
please see this tutorial to understand oracle licensing : http://www.oraclelicensestore.com/en/oracle-licensing-basic-tutorial
It's actually quite simple.
You use that phrase "quite simple" - I do not think it means what you think it means.
If a tutorial is required to understand the licensing, its not "quite simple."
Leaving your router open is a Bad Idea. Yeah, off in magical happy fairy land where your theoretical legal protections actually matter it'd be great if everyone left their routers open. But reality shows that your protections aren't worth squat and you should lock up your router so you don't get punished for what people do on your network.
I agree strongly that leaving your router open is a Bad Idea, at least with the present assumed architecture of most home networks. The Wireless Access Point (WAP) for such networks is generally located *inside* the protected domain boundary (aka the "broadband router"/NAT device/sortof firewall) that protects that home network from the evils of the Internet. Allowing strangers direct access to the soft and chewy goodness of your home network is a certifiably insane thing to do, and that is where most people's home wireless access point will put those strangers if not protected through encryption, MAC ID filtering, and (if available) 802.1x access control.
For those with the technical know-how, a few extra bucks, and the altruistic motivation to do so, it is certainly possible to put a WAP *outside* of your protected boundary, with a separate (and protected/encrypted) WAP inside of your boundary. With such an architecture, one would then be able to start the debate of whether you the owner of that publicly-accessible WAP would in fact be responsible for any misuse of it, and whether or not your ISP's "terms of service" actually allowed you to provide such a service.
The hybrid autonomous underwater vehicle "Nereus" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nereus_(underwater_vehicle) and http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=10076 uses ceramic ball technology for buoyancy, and it's been down in the Challenger Deep, so the idea of a ceramic ball withstanding the pressure is credible. However, Nereus uses a large number of little ceramic balls, not one large (people-holding) ceramic ball, so there is some testing to be done, I think!
i really don't get why this has to be measured in feet. If you must use imperial system, wouldn't 8 furlongs, 5 chains and 10 yards sound nicer? btw, my daily ride to work is 2 735 000 centimetres long.
In the United States, we eschewed the "imperial" system of measurement (look up the American Revolution), and kept just the bits that we liked (in some cases, we kept the name but changed how much it represented from the imperial measures - quantities like "gallons", "pints", and "fluid ounces;" confusion to the enemy, sir!). So we use feet and miles, not furlongs and chains. What I thought was wrong with the description was the lack of a comparison to the height of the Empire State Building or the Sears Tower, or even Mt. McKinley. You know, something that the average US citizen can relate to in terms of magnitude.
I am also frustrated at the picture quality of Internet streaming media. Comparing streaming Internet media to digital cable isn't the best comparision to make; digital cable typically compresses the living daylights out of program material... streaming may look better than digital cable, but it doesn't hold a candle to a Bluray Disc.... why spend the $$ on a high-def TV and then watch no better than standard def streaming material?
Terrestrial broadcast High Def is typically a great picture (from major networks who aren't also compressing the material). Netflix HD is ok, but doesn't come anywhere near the ability of the "HD" display technology from what I have seen. Other streaming media sources don't even come close to Netflix HD, unfortunately.
I ditched my DirecTV subscription several years ago, and we watch broadcast TV, RedBox rental DVD/Bluray, and some streaming media now. We tried out HuluPlus recently, but wasn't thrilled enough by the picture quality of the content or by the occasional hiccups in delivery to my Sony Bluray Disc/Internet streaming media player to subscribe. I think the promise is there, but the data rates for true HD (never mind Bluray) are still problematic for the Internet delivery infrastructure.
Hmmm. Interesting. In Maryland, USA we took over a space (subletting from the original tenant) and had the original tenant pay (before we would sign the lease agreement) to replace the telephone/network cabling infrastructure because it had been cut by the previous subleasing tenant. The cabling infrastructure is a necessary component of a modern office building, just like plumbing and electrical wiring.
I think TFA was probably being overly kind to say that the practice involves unused wires... Here in the United States the practice seems to include any kind of copper wire they think they can get away with taking, including completely stripping a local county athletic field of the underground copper for the lights TWICE in quick succession.
Sorry - my referenced URL was not present - here it is http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/unhappy-meals/
I didn't mean to imply that one should only eat fruits and vegetables. I meant only that one would not suffer an over-intake of a nutritional element from eating as much of them as one wants.
I've always liked this dietary advice: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
For those who are interested, here is an essay to help explain that advice (in the event that it seems underwhelming). I only reference this essay to explain the dietary advice, not because I do or don't advocate listening to the writer in general.
Hmmm. I don't think that the label "junk food" is dependent on how much or how often you consume it or whether the ingredients are "natural", but rather the nutritional values of the food. Foods containing significant quantities of nutrients that the human body only needs in small amounts are "junk food." If you can control your intake of these foods so that you end up with an overall balanced diet, then you have eating well despite the occasional indulgence in "junk food." If you can't control your intake of these foods, you will suffer the ill effects of these "junk foods." The major elements to watch out for are salt, sugars, and fats. In the habitat in which the human animal evolved, these elements were hard to come by in large quantities, but were nutritionally valuable. Now they are readily available, still nutritionally valuable, but still only required in relatively small amounts.
In fact, just because a food is made with "natural ingredients" doesn't mean its not junk food. Humans are now well-skilled at taking things found in nature in small concentrations and processing them to significantly increase the concentration (or finding other animal products with the same effect, such as honey). We "crave" these elements because it was a successful evolutionary strategy when they were scarce. Evolution doesn't happen at a fast enough pace to accommodate for the fact that they aren't scarce at all now and its no longer useful for us to crave them.
Consider fruits and vegetables. Eat as much as you like of these, and I don't think you will have health problems. They are not "junk food" - you can't consume enough of them to suffer from over-intake of their nutritional elements.
Although I haven't seen the details of this particular case, I don't think your conclusion is the only possible one.
My conclusion was that Judge Davis thought "You have valid patents, but you have not shown that the technology that Apple is using infringes on those patents. Have a nice day."
I agree that the article cited is of questionable value and use. However, I'm not sure EMV is the best example for demonstrating improved security through a modified end-user experience.
EMV may improve security some, but more importantly for the purveyors, it shifts liability... from Wikipedia "The supposed increased protection from fraud has allowed banks and credit card issuers to push through a 'liability shift' such that merchants are now liable (as from 1 January 2005 in the EU region) for any fraud that results from transactions on systems that are not EMV capable.[2] For transactions in which an EMV card is used, the cardholder is assumed to be liable unless they can unquestionably prove they were not present for the transaction, did not authorize the transaction, and did not inadvertently assist the transaction through PIN disclosure."
Authentication can be defined as the process of proving an identity. One question to ask is what identity is being proven? Does the concept of identity even have meaning outside of a relationship between two parties?
We like to believe that we each are ourselves, which is our sense of identity. But who are we, anyway? We could define our identity as being the child of our (presumably two) parents - but this just pushes the problem off one generation - what is the identity of our parents? This could be taken back as far as necessary to establish an identity chain that would make it unlikely to find conflicts. We can also define our identity as being the individual born in a certain location at a certain date/time, and we feel this is probably unique because it is unlikely that there were more than one individual born at the same date/time in the same location (assuming the location is localized enough). But are these identities really meaningful? Are they what is really necessary?
In most circumstances, its not who you are that is important, but your relationship with another party that matters. For example, my college didn't necessarily care who I was while I was in attendance there, but rather that the person who took all of the courses and exams, building up an academic record, was the same person to whom they granted a degree upon my satisfactory completion of a particular course of study. In some sense, the US IRS doesn't care who you are (the child of Julius and Ethel, for example) but rather that the single individual who made income from a set of income sources paid the taxes that they owe based on current tax law for that income. And the US Social Security system cares mostly that the individual who paid a certain amount on Social Security fees over their lifetime for income earned is the same person to whom they are cutting a Social Security check in retirement. And so on...
Is it really meaningful to seek a single ID and authentication of that ID for use with numerous parties, who are really only interested in establishing your relationship to a particular credit account, or taxpayer ID, or student it? What risks might be involved in constructing such a singularly important ID?
I studied this problem while working for a major US federal agency that would have found it very useful to have a trustable electronic ID for every US citizen a few years ago. When I studied it, I pointed out possible risks that the public might perceive in this scheme. These included the idea that the US federal government could easily link all federal records for an individual together using such an ID, the US federal government could require all transactions with the US federal government to be made under this ID, and so on. In other words, it would be a key aspect of putting together a surveillance state. I didn't think (then) that most people would go for it.
Things may have changed, now... if enough people in the US are fed up with having separate identities and credentials for each on-line service they use, either socially or for business, they might be willing to let the US federal government take on the role of proofing identity. US citizens already accept that role with the standard state-issued government ID (a driver's license) and the standard federally-issued ID (the passport) that is required for virtually all significant identity-proofing transactions. Would they accept it for electronic transactions as well?
Of course, the difference with the current system is that the records of using the identity-proofing service (showing a driver's license or passport) are only in the hands of the people to whom we prove our identity. Under an electronic system, unless it is designed to preclude centralized logging, the US federal government would have a record of every time the ID was used. Yikes?
Do we trust no one by trusting everyone just a little, or do we trust just one?
Unless individuals can be counted upon to safely and securely hold on to the private half of a public key pair, any federated identity proofing service will have the ability to masquerade as any of the individuals for whom they prove identity, I think. (Please clarify my thinking if I'm wrong.)
If a federated identity proofing service can masquerade as me, I've got to trust that they (and all of their employees) won't do this, no matter what the enticement.
I take the risk, now, that my brokerage firm won't pretend to be me and make trades in my account. I take the risk, now, that my bank won't disburse money from my account and claim that I did it. I take the risk, now, that any other firm with whom I do business under the guise of an identity proofed by them that they won't enact transactions on my behalf and claim that I did it.
Am I willing to take those same risks, in a federated identity world, all in the hands of a single identity proofing service provider?
Pick several name brand manufacturers of machines that will run Windows natively. Figure out which machines from their lineup are "business class" machines (i.e., not the cheap consumer-class stuff with fantastic looking specs but that don't hold up in the long run). From these, find the ones that have the peripheral support you want (USB, Bluetooth, 802.11 a/g/b/n, video cards, resolutions, etc.) For basic needs, probably most business class machines will have what you need built-in (businesses tend to want to buy hardware once, not buy and then add crap on later). Compare price/Mhz to make sure you are not out at the bleeding edge of the performance curve (i.e., paying too much for the best speed possible) - sometimes the best pricing is in the middle of the pack, sometimes its on the model they want to clear out because a new leader is on the way. If you have the time/want to torture yourself, take the time to understand which processors are used in which. Make sure your final choices have enough memory (or that you have a plan to add quality aftermarket memory more cheaply). If you want an extended support agreement, throw in the cost of that as well. With this winnowed down list, read reviews. Make sure that any reviews you read are a) about the exact model you plan to buy, and b) are by people who aren't complete idiots.
Pick the one of these that you feel best about buying after reading some reviews, looking at the prices, etc. Then don't look at any new ads. Whatever you buy will be much cheaper in 6 months, why torture yourself?