Or, you could, like, teach them how to use birth control?
Oh no, that'd be too simple
That ignores reality -- I have a relative that had a baby at 15 -- I outright asked her why they didn't use birth control (which was available to her for free at a school clinic). She said "Well, it was our first time, and he didn't want to use anything, so we didn't."
Mandatory reversible sterilization of all children when they turn 12 years of age. Then let them undergo the procedure for free to reverse it after age 21 if they choose to do so.
Dear God, I hope you're not serious! You'd let the government sterilize your child? If this law came in in my country, I'd be on the first to start the revolution.
But you're ok with your young daughter and her boyfriend conceiving a child when their hormones override their common sense? Are you willing to take full financial responsibility for raising her child?
Mandatory reversible sterilization of all children when they turn 12 years of age. Then let them undergo the procedure for free to reverse it after age 21 if they choose to do so. I will bet you that 90% will prefer to not have kids. Keeping young teens from ruining their lives by having kids is important, teens will hump like rabbits, it's in their nature. Lets not let them ruin their lives because a bunch of backwater uneducated hillbillies wont let the government give out birth control and educated kids in the use of birth control.
Yeah, I like your solution better -- but instead of free reversal of sterilization, prospective parents should have to show that they can financially support a child, successfully complete a parenting class, as well as complete a home study similar to what adopted parents go through. I went though a stricter screening to adopt a dog (who would otherwise face euthanasia) than the scrutiny faced by horny teens in the back seat of a car when they conceive a child.
This would dramatically reduce the world's population -- Within a generation or two, the world's population could be cut down to a much more sustainable level. The population could be prevented from dropping too low by offering increasingly higher economic incentives to encourage couples to conceive. With robots taking up the slack in labor and economic development, this could be a huge environmental win - better standard of living for everyone without any real sacrifice.
All would be perfect...until, of course, the machines realize that the humans are the real threat and seek to exterminate them. But we've all seen those movies.
Problems with people becoming breeding factories? Reduce the basic wage payments given for each child born over +2 by 50% then 75%, then nothing over 4.
That's only an acceptable solution if you're willing to starve children to punish their parents for overbreeding. Setting quotas with mandatory sterilization (reversable in case of death of a child) seems like it would be better at preventing overpopulation without also punishing children whose parents made bad decisions.
Besides, why would I read the article when the summary is quite clear about the purchasers:
"Intellectual Ventures and RPX Rational Patent, two companies frequently referred to as patent trolls, have snapped up the troubled Kodak company's imaging patents.
For only $550M, why didn't Google buy the patents? That's pocket change for them (even for Sergey personally), and I'm sure Android infringes on one or more of the patents. Google could indemnify all Android manufacturers and software developers.
But the wavelength and penetrance is substantially different - we know an awful lot about the radiation exposure associated with flying. We know less about the effects of the radiation exposure from the backscatter scanners
That's not really true. Mostly what we know a lot about is the damage caused by particular radioisotopes, some sources of X-rays, and nuclear accidents. The rest is modeled. X-ray backscatter scanners emit a measured amount of X-rays at a known frequency that's well within the realm of what we know about.
I'm no radiation expert, but when a group of PhD's and MD's who *are* radiation experts have concerns about the machines, then I have concerns:
The X-ray dose from these devices has often been compared in the media to the cosmic ray exposure inherent to airplane travel or that of a chest X-ray. However, this comparison is very misleading: both the air travel cosmic ray exposure and chest Xrays
have much higher X-ray energies and the health consequences are appropriately understood in terms of the whole body volume dose. In contrast, these new airport scanners are largely depositing their energy into the skin and immediately adjacent tissue, and since this is such a small fraction of body weight/vol, possibly by one to two orders of magnitude, the real dose to the skin is now high.
This letter was written almost 3 years ago, have any of their concerns been addressed?
I dunno. Not leaving any hardware behind to be discovered seems like it might have SOME value.
Besides, when you use the phone as your bug, you don't need to worry about a power source. Gaining entry to an office as a part of the janitorial company seems like a trivial exercise for someone determined to steal corporate secrets.
Of course, the drawback is that this would be trivial to detect with a simple IDS system: "Hey, why does the conference room phone keep sending data to a Verizon Wireless IP address?". While a traditional bug would require an RF sweep to find it - and if it saves up conversations and sends them out in a short burst, it can be nearly impossible to find without constant surveillance.
On smartphones, local exploits matter because they mean apps can gain more permissions than they are supposed to have. (This is a much smaller problem on desktops because people don't tend to install programs on desktops anywhere near as much.)
You've never seen a user click blindly through ActiveX install warnings if you think Desktop users rarely install software.
That's definitely a problem. The way the summary is worded makes it sound like a user having root is a security exploit... something most hardware and OS manufacturers seem to believe these days. I may have to break tradition and read the article.
For most users, having root *is* a security exploit. Few users know how to tell whether the application they are installing as root is "safe".
6.1 Generally. We may suspend your or any End User’s right to access or use any portion or all of the Service Offerings immediately upon notice to you if we determine:
(a) your or an End User’s use of or registration for the Service Offerings (i) poses a security risk to the Service Offerings or any third party, (ii) may adversely impact the Service Offerings or the systems or Content of any other AWS customer, (iii) may subject us, our affiliates, or any third party to liability, or (iv) may be fraudulent;
(b) you are, or any End User is, in breach of this Agreement, including if you are delinquent on your payment obligations for more than 15 days; or
(c) you have ceased to operate in the ordinary course, made an assignment for the benefit of creditors or similar disposition of your assets, or become the subject of any bankruptcy, reorganization, liquidation, dissolution or similar proceeding.
What provider *won't* cut you off if you violate their terms of use or don't pay?
Dumb ass, here's a clue for you. Don't put you and your company is a position vulnerability in the first place and you won't have to worry.
How do you have an internet presence without putting yourself in the hands of some provider that can cut you off if you don't pay?
Unless you build your own datacenter in your own building (not leased). have your own power plant (wouldn't want the power company to be able to cut you off), have multiple internet connections from different carriers, how can you avoid being beholden to another company's terms of use?
Gotta put safety kill-switches on the inside that don't actually get compacted or pressed by the compactors itself or any of the trash. Something that requires intervention by a human who accidentally finds himself trapped inside during compaction-time.
They already have covers on the chutes that lead to the trash compactors to prevent humans from entering. Presumably if the service door inside the compactor is open for legitimate maintenance, there's a lockout to prevent the compactors from activating. If criminals wouldn't blast open the covers to illicitly gain entry, then there wouldn't be humans caught in the compactors.
Safety switches inside aren't going to add much real safety, but will be a source of maintenance headaches.
For the same reason smoke stacks and ventilation ducts have the least number of turns and bends: any obstruction creates back-pressure... and back pressure is something you don't want when you are trying to dissipate excess heat during a SCRAM.
Then again... whoever thought they could hit a 1.5 meter target while travelling at 250+ meters / second....
Childs play - I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home, they're not much bigger than two meters.
Windshields have this funny effect where sunlight and streetlights can cause a glare, which prevents a driver from seeing you. From your POV outside the vehicle he looked at you. From his POV, there was some bright sun and then a man was on his hood.
I always asume the driver doesn't see me. Even if I think they looked right at me.
Of course, drivers always have the option of slowing and/or pulling off the road and stopping when they don't have adequate visibility. If glare on your windshield prevents you from safely seeing the road, why would you continue to drive?
To be fair, if your walking you are taking a very large risk anyway and should be paying attention since you aren't protected by a steel cage, especially if you walk the Monday after daylight savings time switch happens (single highest pedestrian death day each year)
Are you sure you meant to say "fair"? Why should the pedestrian who poses the smallest risk to everyone have the largest responsibility to look out for errant drivers? Sure, it's realistic, but it hardly seems fair - to be fair, the guy in the steel cage that's capable of inflicting great harm on the unprotected pedestrian would be the one that's paying closer attention.
If you're going to put that in, than I also demand something about people cruising 20mph under while in the inside lane, because those are the people I tailgate. If you want to go slow, that's fine, just get out of the way of those who don't.
If you're going to put that law into place, then how about computer controlled speed governors on every car, restricting them to the speed limit (with maybe a short override allowable for merging/passing)
If I'm driving 65 in a 65mph zone and pass a block of cars driving 60mph, I don't need an idiot tailgating me until I complete the pass. He may want to drive 80mph, but that doesn't mean that I should have to drive 80mph to pass a car.
Actually, theres sufficient evidence that shows they make the roads more dangerous because of sudden stops to avoid said tickets, and have done little to curb others that would run it anyway. They also have a habit of taking pictures during green lights and submitting tickets for those.
Is there any evidence to show if they are effective at preventing pedestrian accidents? I regularly walk through some intersections with redlight cameras, and the cars *always* stop at the red light at the intersections with cameras - at the other intersections, drivers regularly do a rolling stops where the driver is only looking to the left to see if there's any traffic coming so he doesn't see the pedestrian in the crosswalk coming from his right-hand side.
As a pedestrian, I think it's fair to trade off a few more rear-end collisions for better pedestrian safety.
Even without red-light cameras, some drivers stop quickly when the light changes, so all drivers should be prepared for the car ahead of them to stop when the light changes, not just at intersections where there are cameras.
3. Batteries are not that expensive. I just bought a 870 kW deep-cycle battery for my vehicle for $200. During the Derecho in July, I was able to power my TV, fridge, and laptop for over 3 hours (I turned my vehicle on every 3 hours for 10 minutes to recharge the battery). That worked for the 36 hours I was without power.
870KW battery? That doesn't seem possible. Nor 870KWh.
870KW means that it can supply 72,500 amps of current @ 12V.
870KWh, even if you spread if over a month to limit peak current means that the battery can supply 100 amps @ 12V 24 hours/day for 30 days.
You'd need a battery bank the size of a (large) house for that.
In comparison, the Nissan Leaf electric car has a 24KWh battery.
Not to mention reduced heat output (and potentially less fan noise due to lower heat), important in many scenarios
Plus you have to add in costs due to the extra air conditioning load in the summer time (gotta remove all of that heat), and subtract in the winter time to account for the fact that your furnace needs to do less work to keep your house warm.
If your'e anywhere in the Bay Area you have far more choices than that - you apparently just cant be bothered to look.
Please tell me where these providers are - I've looked. They all use AT&T for the last mile, so all of the DSL offerings top out at up to 3mbit due to the distance from the central office. And that's with a bonded DSL connection. The rep at one ISP (Sonic.net - I highly recommend them), recommended that I just go with Comcast due to my distance from the Telco central office.
No U-verse in my neighborhood (or most of SF). I checked a couple fixed-wireless providers, but not only was their service expensive (one wanted $500/month for 5 mbit if i signed a 3 year contract), but due to my location (no clear line of sight to Sutro), they wouldn't guarantee service unless I paid for a site survey. Plus I'd need to get permission from my landlord to install a dish on the roof.
But since you seem to be an expert in internet in all areas in the bay area, perhaps you can recommend a cost effective solution that's not Cable or DSL. I'm sure AT&T would be happy to tell me a DS3 or Metro ethernet, but that's out of my price range.
If we lived in a tiny country like Sweden or Japan, it would be easy to have infrastructure in place for good internet speeds for all. "Unfortunately" for us, we just have too much room here in the USA.
You can't blame it all on geography, I live in a small, densely populated city (with density exceeding many Japanese urban areas) located very close to Silicon Valley and my only options are Comcast Cable internet or "up to" 3 mbit DSL.
Slashdot Mirror
Or, you could, like, teach them how to use birth control?
Oh no, that'd be too simple
That ignores reality -- I have a relative that had a baby at 15 -- I outright asked her why they didn't use birth control (which was available to her for free at a school clinic). She said "Well, it was our first time, and he didn't want to use anything, so we didn't."
Mandatory reversible sterilization of all children when they turn 12 years of age. Then let them undergo the procedure for free to reverse it after age 21 if they choose to do so.
Dear God, I hope you're not serious! You'd let the government sterilize your child? If this law came in in my country, I'd be on the first to start the revolution.
But you're ok with your young daughter and her boyfriend conceiving a child when their hormones override their common sense? Are you willing to take full financial responsibility for raising her child?
Mandatory reversible sterilization of all children when they turn 12 years of age. Then let them undergo the procedure for free to reverse it after age 21 if they choose to do so. I will bet you that 90% will prefer to not have kids. Keeping young teens from ruining their lives by having kids is important, teens will hump like rabbits, it's in their nature. Lets not let them ruin their lives because a bunch of backwater uneducated hillbillies wont let the government give out birth control and educated kids in the use of birth control.
Yeah, I like your solution better -- but instead of free reversal of sterilization, prospective parents should have to show that they can financially support a child, successfully complete a parenting class, as well as complete a home study similar to what adopted parents go through. I went though a stricter screening to adopt a dog (who would otherwise face euthanasia) than the scrutiny faced by horny teens in the back seat of a car when they conceive a child.
This would dramatically reduce the world's population -- Within a generation or two, the world's population could be cut down to a much more sustainable level. The population could be prevented from dropping too low by offering increasingly higher economic incentives to encourage couples to conceive. With robots taking up the slack in labor and economic development, this could be a huge environmental win - better standard of living for everyone without any real sacrifice.
All would be perfect...until, of course, the machines realize that the humans are the real threat and seek to exterminate them. But we've all seen those movies.
Problems with people becoming breeding factories? Reduce the basic wage payments given for each child born over +2 by 50% then 75%, then nothing over 4.
That's only an acceptable solution if you're willing to starve children to punish their parents for overbreeding. Setting quotas with mandatory sterilization (reversable in case of death of a child) seems like it would be better at preventing overpopulation without also punishing children whose parents made bad decisions.
why didn't Google buy the patents?
They did. Did you read the article?
This is Slashdot, of course not.
Besides, why would I read the article when the summary is quite clear about the purchasers:
"Intellectual Ventures and RPX Rational Patent, two companies frequently referred to as patent trolls, have snapped up the troubled Kodak company's imaging patents.
For only $550M, why didn't Google buy the patents? That's pocket change for them (even for Sergey personally), and I'm sure Android infringes on one or more of the patents. Google could indemnify all Android manufacturers and software developers.
But the wavelength and penetrance is substantially different - we know an awful lot about the radiation exposure associated with flying. We know less about the effects of the radiation exposure from the backscatter scanners
That's not really true. Mostly what we know a lot about is the damage caused by particular radioisotopes, some sources of X-rays, and nuclear accidents. The rest is modeled. X-ray backscatter scanners emit a measured amount of X-rays at a known frequency that's well within the realm of what we know about.
I'm no radiation expert, but when a group of PhD's and MD's who *are* radiation experts have concerns about the machines, then I have concerns:
http://www.npr.org/assets/news/2010/05/17/concern.pdf
The X-ray dose from these devices has often been compared in the media to the cosmic
ray exposure inherent to airplane travel or that of a chest X-ray. However, this
comparison is very misleading: both the air travel cosmic ray exposure and chest Xrays
have much higher X-ray energies and the health consequences are appropriately
understood in terms of the whole body volume dose. In contrast, these new airport
scanners are largely depositing their energy into the skin and immediately adjacent
tissue, and since this is such a small fraction of body weight/vol, possibly by one to two
orders of magnitude, the real dose to the skin is now high.
This letter was written almost 3 years ago, have any of their concerns been addressed?
I dunno. Not leaving any hardware behind to be discovered seems like it might have SOME value.
Besides, when you use the phone as your bug, you don't need to worry about a power source. Gaining entry to an office as a part of the janitorial company seems like a trivial exercise for someone determined to steal corporate secrets.
Of course, the drawback is that this would be trivial to detect with a simple IDS system: "Hey, why does the conference room phone keep sending data to a Verizon Wireless IP address?". While a traditional bug would require an RF sweep to find it - and if it saves up conversations and sends them out in a short burst, it can be nearly impossible to find without constant surveillance.
On smartphones, local exploits matter because they mean apps can gain more permissions than they are supposed to have. (This is a much smaller problem on desktops because people don't tend to install programs on desktops anywhere near as much.)
You've never seen a user click blindly through ActiveX install warnings if you think Desktop users rarely install software.
That's definitely a problem. The way the summary is worded makes it sound like a user having root is a security exploit ... something most hardware and OS manufacturers seem to believe these days. I may have to break tradition and read the article.
For most users, having root *is* a security exploit. Few users know how to tell whether the application they are installing as root is "safe".
Of course, if the recreational users all started having half a million dollars in property to confiscate, we'd probably see a shift.
Of course, if the recreational users all started having half a million dollars in property to confiscate, we'd probably see a shift.
Many recreational users already have that much (or more) property.
Do you think all pot smokers are out of work 20 year olds who live in their parents' basement?
Every time I hear this I think WTF a 6 foot tall RAT! Run for the hills!!
That would truly be an R.O.U.S.! (Rodent of Unusual Size)
Here's Amazon AWS's terms of use:
6.1 Generally. We may suspend your or any End User’s right to access or use any portion or all of the Service Offerings immediately upon notice to you if we determine:
(a) your or an End User’s use of or registration for the Service Offerings (i) poses a security risk to the Service Offerings or any third party, (ii) may adversely impact the Service Offerings or the systems or Content of any other AWS customer, (iii) may subject us, our affiliates, or any third party to liability, or (iv) may be fraudulent;
(b) you are, or any End User is, in breach of this Agreement, including if you are delinquent on your payment obligations for more than 15 days; or
(c) you have ceased to operate in the ordinary course, made an assignment for the benefit of creditors or similar disposition of your assets, or become the subject of any bankruptcy, reorganization, liquidation, dissolution or similar proceeding.
What provider *won't* cut you off if you violate their terms of use or don't pay?
Dumb ass, here's a clue for you. Don't put you and your company is a position vulnerability in the first place and you won't have to worry.
How do you have an internet presence without putting yourself in the hands of some provider that can cut you off if you don't pay?
Unless you build your own datacenter in your own building (not leased). have your own power plant (wouldn't want the power company to be able to cut you off), have multiple internet connections from different carriers, how can you avoid being beholden to another company's terms of use?
Gotta put safety kill-switches on the inside that don't actually get compacted or pressed by the compactors itself or any of the trash. Something that requires intervention by a human who accidentally finds himself trapped inside during compaction-time.
They already have covers on the chutes that lead to the trash compactors to prevent humans from entering. Presumably if the service door inside the compactor is open for legitimate maintenance, there's a lockout to prevent the compactors from activating. If criminals wouldn't blast open the covers to illicitly gain entry, then there wouldn't be humans caught in the compactors.
Safety switches inside aren't going to add much real safety, but will be a source of maintenance headaches.
For the same reason smoke stacks and ventilation ducts have the least number of turns and bends: any obstruction creates back-pressure ... and back pressure is something you don't want when you are trying to dissipate excess heat during a SCRAM.
Then again ... whoever thought they could hit a 1.5 meter target while travelling at 250+ meters / second ....
Childs play - I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home, they're not much bigger than two meters.
Windshields have this funny effect where sunlight and streetlights can cause a glare, which prevents a driver from seeing you. From your POV outside the vehicle he looked at you. From his POV, there was some bright sun and then a man was on his hood.
I always asume the driver doesn't see me. Even if I think they looked right at me.
Of course, drivers always have the option of slowing and/or pulling off the road and stopping when they don't have adequate visibility. If glare on your windshield prevents you from safely seeing the road, why would you continue to drive?
To be fair, if your walking you are taking a very large risk anyway and should be paying attention since you aren't protected by a steel cage, especially if you walk the Monday after daylight savings time switch happens (single highest pedestrian death day each year)
Are you sure you meant to say "fair"? Why should the pedestrian who poses the smallest risk to everyone have the largest responsibility to look out for errant drivers? Sure, it's realistic, but it hardly seems fair - to be fair, the guy in the steel cage that's capable of inflicting great harm on the unprotected pedestrian would be the one that's paying closer attention.
As a non-pedestrian
How do you get to/from your car? Teleport?
If you're going to put that in, than I also demand something about people cruising 20mph under while in the inside lane, because those are the people I tailgate. If you want to go slow, that's fine, just get out of the way of those who don't.
If you're going to put that law into place, then how about computer controlled speed governors on every car, restricting them to the speed limit (with maybe a short override allowable for merging/passing)
If I'm driving 65 in a 65mph zone and pass a block of cars driving 60mph, I don't need an idiot tailgating me until I complete the pass. He may want to drive 80mph, but that doesn't mean that I should have to drive 80mph to pass a car.
Actually, theres sufficient evidence that shows they make the roads more dangerous because of sudden stops to avoid said tickets, and have done little to curb others that would run it anyway. They also have a habit of taking pictures during green lights and submitting tickets for those.
Is there any evidence to show if they are effective at preventing pedestrian accidents? I regularly walk through some intersections with redlight cameras, and the cars *always* stop at the red light at the intersections with cameras - at the other intersections, drivers regularly do a rolling stops where the driver is only looking to the left to see if there's any traffic coming so he doesn't see the pedestrian in the crosswalk coming from his right-hand side.
As a pedestrian, I think it's fair to trade off a few more rear-end collisions for better pedestrian safety.
Even without red-light cameras, some drivers stop quickly when the light changes, so all drivers should be prepared for the car ahead of them to stop when the light changes, not just at intersections where there are cameras.
3. Batteries are not that expensive. I just bought a 870 kW deep-cycle battery for my vehicle for $200. During the Derecho in July, I was able to power my TV, fridge, and laptop for over 3 hours (I turned my vehicle on every 3 hours for 10 minutes to recharge the battery). That worked for the 36 hours I was without power.
870KW battery? That doesn't seem possible. Nor 870KWh.
870KW means that it can supply 72,500 amps of current @ 12V.
870KWh, even if you spread if over a month to limit peak current means that the battery can supply 100 amps @ 12V 24 hours/day for 30 days.
You'd need a battery bank the size of a (large) house for that.
In comparison, the Nissan Leaf electric car has a 24KWh battery.
Not to mention reduced heat output (and potentially less fan noise due to lower heat), important in many scenarios
Plus you have to add in costs due to the extra air conditioning load in the summer time (gotta remove all of that heat), and subtract in the winter time to account for the fact that your furnace needs to do less work to keep your house warm.
If your'e anywhere in the Bay Area you have far more choices than that - you apparently just cant be bothered to look.
Please tell me where these providers are - I've looked. They all use AT&T for the last mile, so all of the DSL offerings top out at up to 3mbit due to the distance from the central office. And that's with a bonded DSL connection. The rep at one ISP (Sonic.net - I highly recommend them), recommended that I just go with Comcast due to my distance from the Telco central office.
No U-verse in my neighborhood (or most of SF). I checked a couple fixed-wireless providers, but not only was their service expensive (one wanted $500/month for 5 mbit if i signed a 3 year contract), but due to my location (no clear line of sight to Sutro), they wouldn't guarantee service unless I paid for a site survey. Plus I'd need to get permission from my landlord to install a dish on the roof.
But since you seem to be an expert in internet in all areas in the bay area, perhaps you can recommend a cost effective solution that's not Cable or DSL. I'm sure AT&T would be happy to tell me a DS3 or Metro ethernet, but that's out of my price range.
If we lived in a tiny country like Sweden or Japan, it would be easy to have infrastructure in place for good internet speeds for all. "Unfortunately" for us, we just have too much room here in the USA.
You can't blame it all on geography, I live in a small, densely populated city (with density exceeding many Japanese urban areas) located very close to Silicon Valley and my only options are Comcast Cable internet or "up to" 3 mbit DSL.