My CCW instructor was rather clear, in Texas, deadly force is allowed when physical violence is already underway.
Both in defense of yourself, as well as a third person.
Note that deadly force doesn't always mean gun. The father who beat a man to death with his bare hands used deadly force. He caught the man raping his 5 year old daughter.
It was ruled justified homicide. It is still the taking of another human life, it is just legal to do it in that situation.
Likewise, deadly force is not an appropriate, or legally justifiable, response to a punch.
It totally depends on where you live. I'm in Texas, here deadly force is a legal response to physical violence.
If you simply make verbal threats or make a fist, then no, you can't do anything. But the minute you actually punch someone, deadly force is a legal response.
This may come as a shock, but sometimes I don't want to kill people. Just beat some sense into them.
First, you do not have the right to "beat some sense into me". (legally, ethically, or morally)
Second, if you hit me, you can do some real damage, even with just one punch.
So yea, if you walk up to me and punch me in the face, I'm going to assume my life is in danger. And yes, that means that if I'm still breathing, I'm going to shoot you. (and I have the legal right to do that, in self-defense)
I can recognize that there are advantages to allowing gun ownership. Unfortunately, the gun proponents often sound like the real reason that they want a gun is that they're really, really hoping that they will get the chance to shoot someone dead.
No, real men don't ever, ever want to draw a gun on anyone. I've talked with people who have had to do it, there is nothing "cool" or "awesome" about it, it just sucks. It is not a nice experience in any respect and I have no desire to ever do it.
However, I also have no desire to be assaulted either, so I'll make the world a promise. You don't walk up to me and punch me, and in return I'll never shoot you. I would only use my gun to stop a violent act that is already in progress, never for any other reason.
I was raised with guns, they are not toys, you always respect them and the life they can save, and take...
Yep, no thought about the grieving widow, children, parents.
Yep, no thought for the fact that you can't just walk around punching people, it's a crime, assualt, you can do real damage by punching someone in the face, etc...
What kind of savage believes that going around punching people is acceptable in any form or fashion, whatsoever?
If you hit me, you're a rabid dog and need to be put down, simple as that. If you insult me, call my mamma names, I'll walk away, I don't care. If you employ violence, I have no moral qualms with shooting you.
You honestly think it is ok to shoot someone for punching you in the face?
Yes, it is...
What? You think it is ok to just walk around punching people? Or maybe I should carry a baseball bat and I can hit them with that, but not use a gun?
Violence is not acceptable in any form in first use, you can't hit, punch, kick, stab, or otherwise assault another person who has done nothing to you.
However, once you have done that to someone else, they have every right to defend themselves.
You may well be bigger and stronger than me, you might well be able to beat me up. But if you try, a gun levels the playing field.
Anyone know if those LED baseball caps really work?
If they did (which they really don't all that well), you run into another problem.
At some point people are going to have bionic eyes (or contacts) for disability reasons. They are legally blind, but can "see" well enough to move around thanks to this technology.
If you blind them and they then fall down, you have created legal liability.
Quite simply, it isn't going to be an option to walk around trying to blind cameras, no matter how much it makes you feel good typing it on Slashdot.
I think you'll find that illegal most places, jammers of almost all kinds and strips are illegal, using one carries more penalties than the activity you're trying to stop.
That... and the fact that some of us carry guns... if you punch us in the face, unless you're prepared to follow through and kill us, we'll shoot you dead...
Rest assured if someone ever walked up to me and just punched me in the face and knocked me down, if I'm still breathing and able, I'd draw and fire at them, assuming they mean to kill me.
And the laws here allow me to do it. The minute you use physical force against someone, deadly force is a legal response.
However, I suspect the poster above you was just trying to be a funny troll.:)
You realize that moving them out of the US simply makes their job easier. Now they no longer need to ask, no longer even need their secret courts, now they can just do whatever they want outside of the US.
2. How much can you trust Snowden
Up to this point he was just making claims against an agency that largely cannot (or will not) comment about their practices. Now he is making claims against a public company that could pursue him civilly for libel
Eh? Really? Repeat that back to yourself and see if it makes any more sense the second time around...
Snowden is wanted for serious crimes against the government of the United States of America, the penalties for which involve spending the rest of his life in a 8x10 foot concrete cell by himself.
I think he is way, way past civil liabilities against a company or any suing it might do against him in a court of law.
OTOH, if you're doing something that the intelligence agencies (regardless of country) is interested in, your only real hope is to use the the 100% open software/firmware like the FSF advocated
The question is, are you trying to stay off the radar, or trying to avoid having the NSA hack your computer once you're on the radar?
If the former, the challenge is that they can miss and miss and miss, and only have to hit once. You have to hit every time. The odds of that over any period of time are nearly zero. A single mistake and all your efforts are for nothing.
If the latter, no amount of electronic protection is going to do you any good. If they really can't hack their way in, they'll just wait until you leave for lunch and physically break in and copy your hard drives.
And if that fails and you're really on their radar, they'll just use rubber-hose cryptography. Very, very few computer people would stand up very long to a real honest-to-god gun put against their head.
And if that really does fail, there is always your family.
I might resist (at first) if they just threaten me, but I have 3 kids, put a gun to their heads and I'll do whatever I'm told. 99.9% of everyone will.
Ironically enough, I don't miss the point of this...
My point is simply that the tradeoffs required to have a "free" computer are not worth it to me.
Does MS phone home? Yes. Do they reveal all that they do? No, I don't think they do.
But there isn't anything I can do about that and I'm not willing to make the trade to get off MS software.
So here we are.
People who would use this computer are single issue voters when it comes to their tech choices, and frankly there just aren't that many people in that category.
While you may believe freedom to be of utmost importance, that is a subjective belief. It can not be objectively demonstrated that freedom is worth sacrificing expediency for.
This...
I'm all for freedom, but there is more to life than waving the banner of freedom, and that is a personal choice to make.
I would rank freedom right up there with putting food into my children's mouths. If I have to give up my ability to do that (or give up my children completely) to get complete freedom, that may not be a trade I'm willing to make.
And that doesn't make me a fool, it makes me a human being with many concerns in life, of which freedom is but one.
What this means is that you are not the intended audience of this laptop.
You are of course, quite correct...
My point is that the intended audience for this laptop is very, very small, the vast majority of people are not going to make the tradeoffs required to go this route.
That doesn't make this laptop bad, it doesn't mean it shouldn't exist. A better option however would be to make efforts to get Microsoft, Adobe, Intuit, etc. to move more in the open source and transparent direction.
It would be a whole lot easier to get Microsoft to open up Windows than it would be to get everyone off of Windows.
While it is a nice idea, it doesn't run my programs.
I use MS Word and Excel on a regular basis, Adobe Acrobat (the real version) is my friend. Quickbooks is a part of my life.
The time and energy put into learning these programs means that, while there are indeed "free" options out there, the time and energy required to switch FAR exceeds the cost of the software.
I get that there is more than the price, snooping software is another concern, but frankly, I'm not a single issue voter when it comes to tech choices.
Do I like all the snooping? Not really, but I'm not going to change my hardware and software because of it.
Like it or not, the vast majority of consumers are on my side of this issue.
Computers like the one in the submission are nice and I don't mind that they exist, but they are likely to be a very, very small niche for a very long time.
That is evil... It is not the government's job or business in how I choose to raise my child...
Naked human beings is not bad for children, we are all born naked, we'll all die naked, and under our clothes, we're all naked right now.
The violence in our culture is the real problem. Movies like "The Hunger Games" have 8 year old's being beheaded with lots of blood, that's ok, but a naked person? Evil!
Nonsense, the founding fathers of the United States didn't issue their Declaration of Independence then submit themselves to arrest, they would have all been taken to a tree and hung, and we'd still be British subjects today.
What Rosa Parks did was an act of courage, but she also wasn't committing a capital offence either. The founding fathers were. Snowden may not be executed for his crime, but he would spend the rest of his life in prison for it.
Yea, I'd rather not do that either.
Neither Rosa Parks nor Martin Luther King were facing a life prison term. If they were, they might have behaved differently.
Slashdot Mirror
Both in defense of yourself, as well as a third person.
Note that deadly force doesn't always mean gun. The father who beat a man to death with his bare hands used deadly force. He caught the man raping his 5 year old daughter.
It was ruled justified homicide. It is still the taking of another human life, it is just legal to do it in that situation.
Likewise, deadly force is not an appropriate, or legally justifiable, response to a punch.
It totally depends on where you live. I'm in Texas, here deadly force is a legal response to physical violence.
If you simply make verbal threats or make a fist, then no, you can't do anything. But the minute you actually punch someone, deadly force is a legal response.
Laws vary from place to place of course.
This may come as a shock, but sometimes I don't want to kill people. Just beat some sense into them.
First, you do not have the right to "beat some sense into me". (legally, ethically, or morally)
Second, if you hit me, you can do some real damage, even with just one punch.
So yea, if you walk up to me and punch me in the face, I'm going to assume my life is in danger. And yes, that means that if I'm still breathing, I'm going to shoot you. (and I have the legal right to do that, in self-defense)
I can recognize that there are advantages to allowing gun ownership. Unfortunately, the gun proponents often sound like the real reason that they want a gun is that they're really, really hoping that they will get the chance to shoot someone dead.
No, real men don't ever, ever want to draw a gun on anyone. I've talked with people who have had to do it, there is nothing "cool" or "awesome" about it, it just sucks. It is not a nice experience in any respect and I have no desire to ever do it.
However, I also have no desire to be assaulted either, so I'll make the world a promise. You don't walk up to me and punch me, and in return I'll never shoot you. I would only use my gun to stop a violent act that is already in progress, never for any other reason.
I was raised with guns, they are not toys, you always respect them and the life they can save, and take...
Yep, no thought about the grieving widow, children, parents.
Yep, no thought for the fact that you can't just walk around punching people, it's a crime, assualt, you can do real damage by punching someone in the face, etc...
What kind of savage believes that going around punching people is acceptable in any form or fashion, whatsoever?
If you hit me, you're a rabid dog and need to be put down, simple as that. If you insult me, call my mamma names, I'll walk away, I don't care. If you employ violence, I have no moral qualms with shooting you.
You honestly think it is ok to shoot someone for punching you in the face?
Yes, it is...
What? You think it is ok to just walk around punching people? Or maybe I should carry a baseball bat and I can hit them with that, but not use a gun?
Violence is not acceptable in any form in first use, you can't hit, punch, kick, stab, or otherwise assault another person who has done nothing to you.
However, once you have done that to someone else, they have every right to defend themselves.
You may well be bigger and stronger than me, you might well be able to beat me up. But if you try, a gun levels the playing field.
Funny... :) But you'll never get them all, try walking around London without being seen by any cameras...
Armed with a gun no less... p. But that's ok, frankly most of the "tough guys" here wouldn't punch anyone, half of them are posting as AC.
More likely get sued and have to pay their support for a couple of months.
Or get shot, depending on where the poster above you lives.
There is a non-zero chance that if you just walk up to someone and punch them in the face, you might well find yourself shot dead on the spot.
If course, it is easy to talk tough when posting as AC. :)
Anyone know if those LED baseball caps really work?
If they did (which they really don't all that well), you run into another problem.
At some point people are going to have bionic eyes (or contacts) for disability reasons. They are legally blind, but can "see" well enough to move around thanks to this technology.
If you blind them and they then fall down, you have created legal liability.
Quite simply, it isn't going to be an option to walk around trying to blind cameras, no matter how much it makes you feel good typing it on Slashdot.
Active Jamming.
Of what? The Internet? Wi-Fi?
I think you'll find that illegal most places, jammers of almost all kinds and strips are illegal, using one carries more penalties than the activity you're trying to stop.
Rest assured if someone ever walked up to me and just punched me in the face and knocked me down, if I'm still breathing and able, I'd draw and fire at them, assuming they mean to kill me.
And the laws here allow me to do it. The minute you use physical force against someone, deadly force is a legal response.
However, I suspect the poster above you was just trying to be a funny troll. :)
Even if you're gagged and forced into cooperating, having made an agency use totalitarian powers is a good outcome
Unless of course you're the one being gagged...
Something tells me you've never been waterboarded... go enjoy that experience then come back and post about it... :)
You realize that moving them out of the US simply makes their job easier. Now they no longer need to ask, no longer even need their secret courts, now they can just do whatever they want outside of the US.
2. How much can you trust Snowden Up to this point he was just making claims against an agency that largely cannot (or will not) comment about their practices. Now he is making claims against a public company that could pursue him civilly for libel
Eh? Really? Repeat that back to yourself and see if it makes any more sense the second time around...
Snowden is wanted for serious crimes against the government of the United States of America, the penalties for which involve spending the rest of his life in a 8x10 foot concrete cell by himself.
I think he is way, way past civil liabilities against a company or any suing it might do against him in a court of law.
OTOH, if you're doing something that the intelligence agencies (regardless of country) is interested in, your only real hope is to use the the 100% open software/firmware like the FSF advocated
The question is, are you trying to stay off the radar, or trying to avoid having the NSA hack your computer once you're on the radar?
If the former, the challenge is that they can miss and miss and miss, and only have to hit once. You have to hit every time. The odds of that over any period of time are nearly zero. A single mistake and all your efforts are for nothing.
If the latter, no amount of electronic protection is going to do you any good. If they really can't hack their way in, they'll just wait until you leave for lunch and physically break in and copy your hard drives.
And if that fails and you're really on their radar, they'll just use rubber-hose cryptography. Very, very few computer people would stand up very long to a real honest-to-god gun put against their head.
And if that really does fail, there is always your family.
I might resist (at first) if they just threaten me, but I have 3 kids, put a gun to their heads and I'll do whatever I'm told. 99.9% of everyone will.
I am pretty sure if they are interested enough they will get the data one way or another.
This...
Or has no one ever heard of rubber-hose cryptography?
If all else fails, they can break in at night and steal the information locally, or simply put a gun to your head.
When it comes to computer nerds, that last option probably has a 99.99% success rate.
Anyone who doubts this should go to YouTube and search for "Hubble Ultra Deep Field".
Amazing video...
My point is simply that the tradeoffs required to have a "free" computer are not worth it to me.
Does MS phone home? Yes. Do they reveal all that they do? No, I don't think they do.
But there isn't anything I can do about that and I'm not willing to make the trade to get off MS software.
So here we are.
People who would use this computer are single issue voters when it comes to their tech choices, and frankly there just aren't that many people in that category.
While you may believe freedom to be of utmost importance, that is a subjective belief. It can not be objectively demonstrated that freedom is worth sacrificing expediency for.
This...
I'm all for freedom, but there is more to life than waving the banner of freedom, and that is a personal choice to make.
I would rank freedom right up there with putting food into my children's mouths. If I have to give up my ability to do that (or give up my children completely) to get complete freedom, that may not be a trade I'm willing to make.
And that doesn't make me a fool, it makes me a human being with many concerns in life, of which freedom is but one.
What this means is that you are not the intended audience of this laptop.
You are of course, quite correct...
My point is that the intended audience for this laptop is very, very small, the vast majority of people are not going to make the tradeoffs required to go this route.
That doesn't make this laptop bad, it doesn't mean it shouldn't exist. A better option however would be to make efforts to get Microsoft, Adobe, Intuit, etc. to move more in the open source and transparent direction.
It would be a whole lot easier to get Microsoft to open up Windows than it would be to get everyone off of Windows.
While it is a nice idea, it doesn't run my programs.
I use MS Word and Excel on a regular basis, Adobe Acrobat (the real version) is my friend. Quickbooks is a part of my life.
The time and energy put into learning these programs means that, while there are indeed "free" options out there, the time and energy required to switch FAR exceeds the cost of the software.
I get that there is more than the price, snooping software is another concern, but frankly, I'm not a single issue voter when it comes to tech choices.
Do I like all the snooping? Not really, but I'm not going to change my hardware and software because of it.
Like it or not, the vast majority of consumers are on my side of this issue.
Computers like the one in the submission are nice and I don't mind that they exist, but they are likely to be a very, very small niche for a very long time.
Naked human beings is not bad for children, we are all born naked, we'll all die naked, and under our clothes, we're all naked right now.
The violence in our culture is the real problem. Movies like "The Hunger Games" have 8 year old's being beheaded with lots of blood, that's ok, but a naked person? Evil!
Completely wrong and backwards.
What Rosa Parks did was an act of courage, but she also wasn't committing a capital offence either. The founding fathers were. Snowden may not be executed for his crime, but he would spend the rest of his life in prison for it.
Yea, I'd rather not do that either.
Neither Rosa Parks nor Martin Luther King were facing a life prison term. If they were, they might have behaved differently.
About $90 per month...