Yes and Yes. The cost of freedom of speech is that I must allow the person I consider to be a bigoted idiot speak (i.e.: Westboro Baptist Church) so that I may speak what I wish.
No, I can't agree with that. You can't force the proprietor of the business to do anything the customer wants. Let's say the baker's kid just died, is it okay for a customer to demand that the baker ice the cake saying something nasty about the dead kid? It's freedom of speech, right? For some people, something religious will invoke a similarly strong emotion. Why would the state demand that the customer have more rights than the business person?
I get the hotel and gas station argument, but I don't buy the absolutism. It stinks of "zero-tolerance" policies which are rarely (if ever) good ideas.
Businesses have markets. Markets are not biases. The people who own the business have biases. They cannot let their biases influence which classes of people they will serve.
What about a company like "Curves" whose market is women? It's not bias driven (I assume), but it does limit the "class" of people they serve.
I don't think this is as clear-cut as many seem to think it is.
Say you have a company that markets itself as a christian tour group that visits holy sites important to that faith. Can they refuse a group of staunch atheists out of fear that they might ruin the expensive trip for the other customers?
Where I grew up there was ONE Hotel. If they refuse to allow you to stay, and its 11PM at night you get to drive 90 minutes to 2 hours to the next Hotel. If they refuse where do you go from there? What about grocery stores? Gas stations? That is why for places of "Public Accommodation" you must serve the public or be a private place fully with no public walk up service.
I see that, but someone else mentioned that this whole issue came up because of a bakery and a wedding cake. If businesses can't refuse service, does that baker have to put any decoration on a cake no matter how repulsive they might find it? Heck, someone could force a gay print shop to print religious fliers condemning homosexuality. Would that be okay?
Finally, if we want real freedom of this, then why don't I have the freedom FROM religion? Why does this bill not allow me to refuse to serve people who are religious and refuse to serve others?
Freedom from religion would require that the government prevent others from practicing religion. The second question is quite interesting.
BP had to clean up the spill because it's against the law to destroy the environment.
I understand the harm to the community point you're making, but aren't you also harming the practice of religion at the same time? It seems like both should be on equal footing, but I don't see that there's a workable solution to accomplish that.
Then pile on top of that someone calls in sick to say Walgreen's and the check out person refuses to serve someone they perceive as gay, and boom- they have a PR nightmare b/c the other checkout person called out sick and the fill in is not in yet. Not the kind of scheduling, HR, or PR nightmares that any company wants to deal with.
Good point. That's already a problem in some places. I've heard of cases where a pharmacist refuses to fill the morning after pill because of their beliefs. Taken to an extreme though, would it be agreeable to force a doctor who doesn't want to perform abortions to do so? Where do we stop, or do we? Why would the doctor have a choice but not the pharmacist? I'm not picking one point-of-view over another, I just think it's an interesting conflict of competing rights.
No. It would be similar to allowing restaurants to refuse to serve black customers.
Not really. This is one right battling another right. One group wants to be able to practice their religious beliefs without fearing legal retribution, while another group wants to counter that right claiming their own right to be served as people. Segregationists weren't practicing a right.
I guess you're not planning on hiring any religious fundamentalists then? Keep the law, and the state is "hostile" towards homosexuals. Strike the law, and the state becomes "hostile" towards religious people.
Regardless of one's feelings regarding human sexuality, how is the proposed law not "pro-business"? The law gives businesses a choice. Offering business a choice is pro-business. Taking choices away would be anti-business.
$70k is going to buy a heck of lot of gas and routine service, especially if the comparison vehicle is a relatively efficient hybrid.
Figure $3.50 for gas.. that's 20k gallons. 40mpg, that's 800k miles. Subtract a bit for periodic 6mo maintenance, I bet a lot of us would be trading in for something newer before we ever hit the point where the Tesla ends up cheaper. The Tesla owners almost certainly would be trading in sooner, shiny object complex. Repair costs remain to be seen.
No one in the history of mankind has every wanted to scan barcodes. No, QR codes aren't any different.
It's nice if you're shopping brick and mortar and want to quickly see if there's better deals to be had. Scan is nice and quick. Hand entering the UPC or trying to search by text would be awful. Even QR codes have their place. I'd rather scan a QR code than have to deal with the touch keyboard, especially if there's symbols that require extra touches to get to.
Suburban living has been sustainable for as long as there's been suburban living. This supposed peak oil energy crisis hooplah is just that. The know-it-alls have been screaming about it since at least the 70s, and the suburbs are still here, still functional, still attractive. It sounds like you yearn for the type of dystopian civilization that exists in THX1138 or Asimov's Caves of Steel. Prisons house people more efficiently, but I don't exactly want to live in one. If anything, we need to think about our ever-expanding population. That's the root of the problem. It's not peak oil.
FWIW, I live in the outskirts of "greater Boston" in a small city. We have some tech companies here that chose to be here to grab the workers that would otherwise have a grueling commute. It's great. I have a house and a nice yard, and perhaps a ten minute commute depending on how many red lights I encounter. Certainly better than the nightmare I'd have trying to work in Boston or closer to. Only drawback is that changing jobs and not ending up with an awful commute is challenging. Not as many opportunities.
It's aggravating that sites like LinkedIn and practically all recruiters lump it all together as "Boston-area". I'm not interested in jobs in Cambridge or Boston, but might be interested in areas closer by. They may think they're going to "connect" if a seeker is forced to call and ask, but they're really just missing out on good people that don't want to play the game.
A DNS hit is a DNS hit. Whether cheat software or your browser initiates the name resolve, it will end up in the DNS cache. The only protection is what the parent said, it already has to suspect that the player is cheating. Makes me wonder why the dip in the DNS cache is even necessary. To me, it implies that they're afraid of false-positives.
Sounds like a possible exploit to me. All you need is a web page claiming to have cheats or walkthroughs or something, then have that page send the browser to a bunch of the likely-to-be black-listed sites. Now you've just screwed anyone on Steam that happens to hit the page. Then what recourse do the players have? Any? Game software should not be spying on its user outside the realm of the game.
You put the least amount of work into that reply that you possibly could have. I assume this means you're a member of a labor union.
Tech jobs are usually more involved than sitting in front of a computer all day. If you can't negotiate compensation, you're probably lacking in some of the job requirements as well. Pitching a new feature or pushing for one solution over another is not that much different than persuading a would-be employer to meet a desired compensation package.
Meeting minimums is hardly a noble goal. If you want to be rewarded, you need to do better than that. If you only put in the bare minimum, then why shouldn't your employer only compensate you to the bare minimum? Bonuses are just that, they're a bonus. If your work greatly benefits the company, you get a bonus for going above and beyond. It's not a prize for simply showing up.
Employers are already prohibited from discriminating against people on the grounds of race or religion.
What good is a labor union going to do? Any techie that's unable to negotiate their own compensation is probably a techie that needs to brush on their interviewing and technical skills. The proper thing to do in this situation is to voice displeasure, discuss concerns with management, and ultimately.. work somewhere else. I'm going through the same thing right now. It sucks, but it's a far better option. Labor unions will do nothing but suck dues from your paycheck and reward mediocrity. The folks who excel will get to watch the least among them get the same raises and bonuses while being forced to fund a union whose real motivation is politics and revenue.
The interstate commerce clause is a dangerous tool. Nearly anything can be dragged over a state border, and nearly anything could be labelled as commerce. There are people that dislike the AHA because they have insurance offered only within their state and see only doctors within their state. There's not always an interstate component.
The same could be argued of vehicles, although the practicality of selling vehicles targeting specific state requirements could be onerous. Although CARB comes to mind. There are also states which are trying to prevent Tesla from selling over the Internet because state laws forbid it. The union only works if such dangerous tools are used sparingly and for good reason. Highway safety may be a good reason, but if the requirements harm motorists financially, those motorists may reconsider how worthy a reason it truly is.
Frankly, I can't imagine a two way communication mechanism that wouldn't be ripe for abuse. The collision avoidance features already on the market could probably be exploited to cause the vehicles to panic stop unexpectedly. The feds should let the market do its thing and if these features prove themselves and can be made affordable, perhaps then we make requirements. This reminds me of the ever increasing mileage requirements the feds come up with. Industry tends to miss them because the science isn't there yet, at least for the types of vehicles Americans want or need. Not many Americans would be in favor of Uncle Sam deciding what kind of motor vehicle they can have. So what good are requirements that can't be met?
Fair enough, but the point I was making is that the Supreme Court is not the check and balance that it was intended to be. It's easy to get around it. The AHA is one example. The dangling of highway funds is another (this is how the minimum drinking age was forced on the states). If the NHTSA is used for this, then the Supreme Court comment I replied to is that much more irrelevant.
Mod me flamebait all you like people, it doesn't make it less true. Hell, send the IRS after me. Bring it on!
The IRS will tax/fine you if your cars don't conform. The AHA has already made it possible. Or the feds will force the states to enforce it by threatening to withhold federal highway money. There are so many ways to bypass the Constitution.
Heck, we don't even need to get laws passed. The President just issues executive orders. The President just reaffirmed that by suggesting he won't be held back by the legislature.
Maybe, but I'd expect such a gadget to come in well over 50lbs. Otherwise, why even bother with charging stations? Once the vehicle is relying on that engine to make further progress on the long trip, what is the vehicle's new range before needing more gas? It really sounds like the hybrid is the best choice for anyone that may use the vehicle for more than simple commuting and errands.
An additional problem comes to mind. If the engine gadget isn't fully functional and is just collecting dust in the garage, the owner won't know it has issues until they hit the road on their big trip. Whereas in a hybrid, you know the engine works because it's being used frequently.
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Yes and Yes. The cost of freedom of speech is that I must allow the person I consider to be a bigoted idiot speak (i.e.: Westboro Baptist Church) so that I may speak what I wish.
No, I can't agree with that. You can't force the proprietor of the business to do anything the customer wants. Let's say the baker's kid just died, is it okay for a customer to demand that the baker ice the cake saying something nasty about the dead kid? It's freedom of speech, right? For some people, something religious will invoke a similarly strong emotion. Why would the state demand that the customer have more rights than the business person?
I get the hotel and gas station argument, but I don't buy the absolutism. It stinks of "zero-tolerance" policies which are rarely (if ever) good ideas.
Why do you presume hatred?
Businesses have markets. Markets are not biases. The people who own the business have biases. They cannot let their biases influence which classes of people they will serve.
What about a company like "Curves" whose market is women? It's not bias driven (I assume), but it does limit the "class" of people they serve.
I don't think this is as clear-cut as many seem to think it is.
Say you have a company that markets itself as a christian tour group that visits holy sites important to that faith. Can they refuse a group of staunch atheists out of fear that they might ruin the expensive trip for the other customers?
BUT, once you open a PUBLIC business then you must treat all classes of people the same regardless of what your PRIVATE beliefs are.
Fox favors conservatives, MSNBC favors liberals. BET favors black entertainers. Businesses have biases.
Where I grew up there was ONE Hotel. If they refuse to allow you to stay, and its 11PM at night you get to drive 90 minutes to 2 hours to the next Hotel. If they refuse where do you go from there? What about grocery stores? Gas stations? That is why for places of "Public Accommodation" you must serve the public or be a private place fully with no public walk up service.
I see that, but someone else mentioned that this whole issue came up because of a bakery and a wedding cake. If businesses can't refuse service, does that baker have to put any decoration on a cake no matter how repulsive they might find it? Heck, someone could force a gay print shop to print religious fliers condemning homosexuality. Would that be okay?
Finally, if we want real freedom of this, then why don't I have the freedom FROM religion? Why does this bill not allow me to refuse to serve people who are religious and refuse to serve others?
Freedom from religion would require that the government prevent others from practicing religion. The second question is quite interesting.
BP had to clean up the spill because it's against the law to destroy the environment.
I understand the harm to the community point you're making, but aren't you also harming the practice of religion at the same time? It seems like both should be on equal footing, but I don't see that there's a workable solution to accomplish that.
Then pile on top of that someone calls in sick to say Walgreen's and the check out person refuses to serve someone they perceive as gay, and boom- they have a PR nightmare b/c the other checkout person called out sick and the fill in is not in yet. Not the kind of scheduling, HR, or PR nightmares that any company wants to deal with.
Good point. That's already a problem in some places. I've heard of cases where a pharmacist refuses to fill the morning after pill because of their beliefs. Taken to an extreme though, would it be agreeable to force a doctor who doesn't want to perform abortions to do so? Where do we stop, or do we? Why would the doctor have a choice but not the pharmacist? I'm not picking one point-of-view over another, I just think it's an interesting conflict of competing rights.
No. It would be similar to allowing restaurants to refuse to serve black customers.
Not really. This is one right battling another right. One group wants to be able to practice their religious beliefs without fearing legal retribution, while another group wants to counter that right claiming their own right to be served as people. Segregationists weren't practicing a right.
I guess you're not planning on hiring any religious fundamentalists then? Keep the law, and the state is "hostile" towards homosexuals. Strike the law, and the state becomes "hostile" towards religious people.
Is there any middle ground here?
Regardless of one's feelings regarding human sexuality, how is the proposed law not "pro-business"? The law gives businesses a choice. Offering business a choice is pro-business. Taking choices away would be anti-business.
$70k is going to buy a heck of lot of gas and routine service, especially if the comparison vehicle is a relatively efficient hybrid.
Figure $3.50 for gas.. that's 20k gallons. 40mpg, that's 800k miles. Subtract a bit for periodic 6mo maintenance, I bet a lot of us would be trading in for something newer before we ever hit the point where the Tesla ends up cheaper. The Tesla owners almost certainly would be trading in sooner, shiny object complex. Repair costs remain to be seen.
No one in the history of mankind has every wanted to scan barcodes. No, QR codes aren't any different.
It's nice if you're shopping brick and mortar and want to quickly see if there's better deals to be had. Scan is nice and quick. Hand entering the UPC or trying to search by text would be awful. Even QR codes have their place. I'd rather scan a QR code than have to deal with the touch keyboard, especially if there's symbols that require extra touches to get to.
Suburban living has been sustainable for as long as there's been suburban living. This supposed peak oil energy crisis hooplah is just that. The know-it-alls have been screaming about it since at least the 70s, and the suburbs are still here, still functional, still attractive. It sounds like you yearn for the type of dystopian civilization that exists in THX1138 or Asimov's Caves of Steel. Prisons house people more efficiently, but I don't exactly want to live in one. If anything, we need to think about our ever-expanding population. That's the root of the problem. It's not peak oil.
FWIW, I live in the outskirts of "greater Boston" in a small city. We have some tech companies here that chose to be here to grab the workers that would otherwise have a grueling commute. It's great. I have a house and a nice yard, and perhaps a ten minute commute depending on how many red lights I encounter. Certainly better than the nightmare I'd have trying to work in Boston or closer to. Only drawback is that changing jobs and not ending up with an awful commute is challenging. Not as many opportunities.
It's aggravating that sites like LinkedIn and practically all recruiters lump it all together as "Boston-area". I'm not interested in jobs in Cambridge or Boston, but might be interested in areas closer by. They may think they're going to "connect" if a seeker is forced to call and ask, but they're really just missing out on good people that don't want to play the game.
A DNS hit is a DNS hit. Whether cheat software or your browser initiates the name resolve, it will end up in the DNS cache. The only protection is what the parent said, it already has to suspect that the player is cheating. Makes me wonder why the dip in the DNS cache is even necessary. To me, it implies that they're afraid of false-positives.
Sounds like a possible exploit to me. All you need is a web page claiming to have cheats or walkthroughs or something, then have that page send the browser to a bunch of the likely-to-be black-listed sites. Now you've just screwed anyone on Steam that happens to hit the page. Then what recourse do the players have? Any? Game software should not be spying on its user outside the realm of the game.
I was just following orders.
You put the least amount of work into that reply that you possibly could have. I assume this means you're a member of a labor union.
Tech jobs are usually more involved than sitting in front of a computer all day. If you can't negotiate compensation, you're probably lacking in some of the job requirements as well. Pitching a new feature or pushing for one solution over another is not that much different than persuading a would-be employer to meet a desired compensation package.
Meeting minimums is hardly a noble goal. If you want to be rewarded, you need to do better than that. If you only put in the bare minimum, then why shouldn't your employer only compensate you to the bare minimum? Bonuses are just that, they're a bonus. If your work greatly benefits the company, you get a bonus for going above and beyond. It's not a prize for simply showing up.
Employers are already prohibited from discriminating against people on the grounds of race or religion.
How much did the regulations enforced by the Mines and Minerals Service do to prevent the British Petroleum disaster in the gulf?
What good is a labor union going to do? Any techie that's unable to negotiate their own compensation is probably a techie that needs to brush on their interviewing and technical skills. The proper thing to do in this situation is to voice displeasure, discuss concerns with management, and ultimately.. work somewhere else. I'm going through the same thing right now. It sucks, but it's a far better option. Labor unions will do nothing but suck dues from your paycheck and reward mediocrity. The folks who excel will get to watch the least among them get the same raises and bonuses while being forced to fund a union whose real motivation is politics and revenue.
When does one use a performance vehicle as a performance vehicle on a public road?
If there's anything a performance vehicle is crying out for, it's a trailer.
The interstate commerce clause is a dangerous tool. Nearly anything can be dragged over a state border, and nearly anything could be labelled as commerce. There are people that dislike the AHA because they have insurance offered only within their state and see only doctors within their state. There's not always an interstate component.
The same could be argued of vehicles, although the practicality of selling vehicles targeting specific state requirements could be onerous. Although CARB comes to mind. There are also states which are trying to prevent Tesla from selling over the Internet because state laws forbid it. The union only works if such dangerous tools are used sparingly and for good reason. Highway safety may be a good reason, but if the requirements harm motorists financially, those motorists may reconsider how worthy a reason it truly is.
Frankly, I can't imagine a two way communication mechanism that wouldn't be ripe for abuse. The collision avoidance features already on the market could probably be exploited to cause the vehicles to panic stop unexpectedly. The feds should let the market do its thing and if these features prove themselves and can be made affordable, perhaps then we make requirements. This reminds me of the ever increasing mileage requirements the feds come up with. Industry tends to miss them because the science isn't there yet, at least for the types of vehicles Americans want or need. Not many Americans would be in favor of Uncle Sam deciding what kind of motor vehicle they can have. So what good are requirements that can't be met?
Fair enough, but the point I was making is that the Supreme Court is not the check and balance that it was intended to be. It's easy to get around it. The AHA is one example. The dangling of highway funds is another (this is how the minimum drinking age was forced on the states). If the NHTSA is used for this, then the Supreme Court comment I replied to is that much more irrelevant.
Mod me flamebait all you like people, it doesn't make it less true. Hell, send the IRS after me. Bring it on!
The IRS will tax/fine you if your cars don't conform. The AHA has already made it possible. Or the feds will force the states to enforce it by threatening to withhold federal highway money. There are so many ways to bypass the Constitution.
Heck, we don't even need to get laws passed. The President just issues executive orders. The President just reaffirmed that by suggesting he won't be held back by the legislature.
Maybe, but I'd expect such a gadget to come in well over 50lbs. Otherwise, why even bother with charging stations? Once the vehicle is relying on that engine to make further progress on the long trip, what is the vehicle's new range before needing more gas? It really sounds like the hybrid is the best choice for anyone that may use the vehicle for more than simple commuting and errands.
An additional problem comes to mind. If the engine gadget isn't fully functional and is just collecting dust in the garage, the owner won't know it has issues until they hit the road on their big trip. Whereas in a hybrid, you know the engine works because it's being used frequently.