Only pipes that touch soil: Because the contamination is in ground water. Pipes encased in concrete are much less likely to be the culprit because they are ENCASED in concrete.
Pipes that carry liquid: Well, unless we are talking about very large amounts of heavy water vapor then this is a no brainer.
As part of whole systems as defined by law: No clue. I don't really know what piping could be defined as not part of a whole system. Maybe piping left over from construction days that never go used for anything.
The statements Entergy gave were limited to logical conclusions. They were not all encompassing. Water could be leaking from a valve into a junction box then dribbling down through electrical conduit underground until it leaks out; however, I would not start my investigation by digging up all electrical conduits under a building.
Watching something happen is a normal response. Walking away isn't unless there are already people available to help. If you are not stunned by the events in front of you, and also don't respond to help or ensure help is available then you are an ass. I stand by my statement.
Actually it's failure to report anyone who doesn't like Obamacare, or posts opposing facts about it:
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
My point was simply the psychological causes for people to not respond even when they know what to do. The rest goes to point out other stupid laws surrounding the issue. If you are the first person on the scene you are the first responder, whether that response is to administer CPR or to call 911 to report a crime. If you turn around and walk away I guess that doesn't make you the first responder, it just makes you an ass.
This is a bad idea. In emergency response training we had a lengthy discussion about this. When people witness a crime or even a heart attack they often don't respond because they expect someone else to have already called 911 or that someone else will be able to help the person better. You can have a man choking in a restaurant and 10 CPR/Heimlich trained people who all stand around doing nothing. If you don't realize that this is a natural reaction then you can't counter it if the time comes.
On the other side of the coin, if you do render assistance and you are not trained you can be sued. For example, if you assist in a car accident and drag someone from the wreckage who is later diagnosed with spinal injuries you could be sued for causing those injuries unless you can prove that they were in imminent danger and you are trained to move someone with spinal injuries.
Good Samaritan laws are meant to protect first responders, but against a good lawyer you can still lose.
I for one still remember Tandy 486s. They locked down both the hardware and the software. Sure it was an IBM 'compatible' system, so long as you didn't want to install new hardware or unsupported software. As computers were getting standardized Radio Shack/Tandy were trying to force consumers into buying hardware from only one source. As a result there are no more Tandy computers. Apple does the same things, but they have always maintained somewhat superior hardware which has kept them ahead. This new tablet is a mystery though. The I-Phone's success has been the availability of software. Without apps it's just another touch screen phone. So, what will be this tablets success? Is it cheaper than it's competition? Nope. Does it support more software? Not even close. Can I do useful things with it like write my novel in a coffee shop? Nope. Can I edit video with it? Nope. All I can really do with this new tablet is read books/web pages and watch video. Sure that's nifty, but at the price it's pretty worthless. If I wanted to spend $500 to impress the people around me I can think of much better uses.
Paying the private sector to put things/people into space can make sense. It's like any other payed service, and could save money. Paying the private sector to become a space agency makes no sense and seems like defense contractors at their worst.
On one hand you pay a company for a service that they can compete freely on, on the other hand you pay a company to be a service where they have no competition. Seeing how this is Washington we are talking about, they are probably going to pay companies a lot of money and have nothing in return, then blame the private sector for the failure.
What upsets me the most is that if I legally purchase windows for my computer I am limited on how much I can upgrade, but if I illegally pirate it I can actually treat it like I own a copy of the OS. The same is true with the excessive DRM on DVDs and Blu-ray. It doesn't stop people from pirating, it just punishes those of us who own legal copies.
When used at the proper temperatures, which they weren't. A private company wouldn't have used them in the same situation because of the liability involved.
Well considering the satellites need to beam the power down to earth based generation stations and these earth based stations will need to be close to population centers to avoid transmission losses, there is a reason to be afraid of this technology.
"Astrium says the latter can be addressed by using infrared lasers which, if misdirected, would not risk "cooking" anyone in their path."
So a 20kw microwave beam can cook you, but a 20kw infrared beam will feel like getting hit by fluffy bunnies? If you are transmitting large amounts of power it will be dangerous. If it's a wide beam then it is inefficient but less dangerous, if it is a narrow beam then it is more efficient but more dangerous. I can only imagine the public outcry the first time an aircraft runs into one of these beams.
We still have nothing showing that this technology has the potential to be cheaper than earth based solar.
This is not moral relativism. Moral relativism is saying that stealing is ok if you really need the money. What I am saying is two fold: The RIAA should have to PROVE the number of times someone pirated a song, not come up with arbitrary numbers because the song was available. Also the damages should be equal to the crime.
Here is some simple RIAA math: I have a CD. I turn one song into an MP3. How many songs have been pirated? None. It's still my legal right.
I then share the song with my friend, how many songs have been pirated? Two, my friend pirated it by downloading it from me, I pirated it by making it available for download.
I then get a second friend involved who. Downloads the same song. How many songs are pirated? Six. I made the song available, in the process of downloading my first friend made it available, and in the process of downloading my second friend made it available too. Please note there are only three actual pirated songs in this case and one of those is legally owned.
Four people makes it 12 pirated copies... and it goes on. These laws were based on physical copies, not systems for download which make everything you download available to everyone else.
Remember these are not criminal trails, they are civil trails. The court is not there to punish the evil doer, they are there to ensure that the Plaintiffs get paid for their loss. There is no way a single song download can be worth even their low number of $750, maybe 99 cents, but not $750. This number gets even lower when you realize that quite a number of people download songs they would otherwise have no intention to purchase. I have known people with MASSIVE MP3 collections, but I doubt they would have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars buying CDs, they would just gone without.
Piracy is not right, but let the punishment fit the crime.
The law was written with the original purpose of stopping people from counterfeiting media. The penalties as such were designed to be imposed on someone who was mass producing VHS/Cassettes/CDs/DVDs for sale. Now we have people who could have potential supplied a song to thousands of people who are being charged with the same penalties as people who HAVE created thousands of fake copies for sale. When you look at torrents, sure there have been 1000 people connected to the same bit-torrent you are connected to, does that mean you and everyone involved each created 1000 copies? The RIAA thinks so.
The law is outdated. People should pay for the crimes that they have committed, not the crimes they potentially could have committed. The making available argument cannot be used for damages. It is the equivalent to saying that we caught you shoplifting, so now you are charged with grand larceny because you could have taken the entire store.
The per song damages are equally as appalling. If I break my neighbors window, I pay for the window. A song that is available for 99 cents is not a loss of thousands of dollars to the recording labels.
In short, if you agree with the penalties that currently exist then you probably think that jay walking should be a death penalty offense and that not putting 25 cents into the coffee bank at work should be grand larceny.
You forget all the other games WoW has killed. SOE has taken it as their mission in life to turn every MMO they own into a sort of WoW clone. Easy leveling, little penalty for failure, massive numbers scrolling as damage, and above all everyone's a winner. The sad thing is that only Blizzard has been able to do WoW well, all other duplicates stand by with their lackluster games and wonder why they don't succeed with near identical gameplay and bland content.
Duplicating another companies path to success is never a good idea when you are in a market dependent on variety. Fighting for a group of players that are already satisfied is stupid. Instead of going after the hottest girl in the room they should try going after a few of ones that are ignored. Then again, I doubt MMO developers know much about dating.
Depending on the design it could save lives. Sure it could potentially be used to injure/kill people, but if you really wanted to kill people we already have stuff to do that.
The best argument against it is the Taser argument. Cops got Tasers so they would have a way of dealing with resistant people other than their guns or nightsticks. Now we have cops that use Tasers instead of pinning or even reasoning with a resisting suspect. Guy doesn't follow directions, tase him. I think even this argument is failing because police are realizing that Tasers are not their new nightstick to beat people with.
If you are afraid of the military potential using non lethal weapons against people, then remember this: They already use LETHAL weapons against people. Given the choice which do you want them to choose?
Civilian harmless = You can't possibly hurt yourself with it. Examples include... Nerf bats... nope. Water... nope. Play dough. nope. Hmmm. have to find an example.
Military harmless = You have to be negligent or intentionally trying to hurt someone with it. Examples: Lawn Darts. Nerf Bats. Tear Gas. (Yes tear gas is unpleasant, but it is designed not to cause permanent harm.)
Rubber bullets are in the same category of mostly harmless. They leave bruises, but are not designed to kill. That doesn't mean they can't be intentionally or negligently lethal, just that they are not designed to kill, kinda like lawn darts.
You have to see it to understand it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am12NZwr3Fk
Vortex cannons send out a spiraling ring of air. They can hit people and things with some serious force, but it's not due to sound.
Article doesn't give too many details, but if it's a vortex cannon it could be capable stunning people without causing hearing loss. The question is whether you get stunned by a wall of air or very loud sound. I don't trust reporters to be able to distinguish the two.
What do you suggest? Censor him because his beliefs are not the same as your own? Or provide counter arguments which themselves give relevance to what he's saying?
Look at the KKK. For the most part we ignore them. By ignoring them we make them unimportant, all the while preserving their freedom of speech.
But the real question is how many Chinese Government officials are drawing a Google paycheck. I suspect that Google now has more spies than the Vatican.
Slashdot Mirror
Only pipes that touch soil: Because the contamination is in ground water. Pipes encased in concrete are much less likely to be the culprit because they are ENCASED in concrete.
Pipes that carry liquid: Well, unless we are talking about very large amounts of heavy water vapor then this is a no brainer.
As part of whole systems as defined by law: No clue. I don't really know what piping could be defined as not part of a whole system. Maybe piping left over from construction days that never go used for anything.
The statements Entergy gave were limited to logical conclusions. They were not all encompassing. Water could be leaking from a valve into a junction box then dribbling down through electrical conduit underground until it leaks out; however, I would not start my investigation by digging up all electrical conduits under a building.
I for one support the overthrow of our mosquito overlords.
Watching something happen is a normal response. Walking away isn't unless there are already people available to help. If you are not stunned by the events in front of you, and also don't respond to help or ensure help is available then you are an ass. I stand by my statement.
Actually it's failure to report anyone who doesn't like Obamacare, or posts opposing facts about it:
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
From: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/facts-are-stubborn-things/
I believe by fishy they mean anything that isn't positive. I can't imagine the uproar if Bush had done anything remotely similar.
My point was simply the psychological causes for people to not respond even when they know what to do. The rest goes to point out other stupid laws surrounding the issue. If you are the first person on the scene you are the first responder, whether that response is to administer CPR or to call 911 to report a crime. If you turn around and walk away I guess that doesn't make you the first responder, it just makes you an ass.
This is a bad idea. In emergency response training we had a lengthy discussion about this. When people witness a crime or even a heart attack they often don't respond because they expect someone else to have already called 911 or that someone else will be able to help the person better. You can have a man choking in a restaurant and 10 CPR/Heimlich trained people who all stand around doing nothing. If you don't realize that this is a natural reaction then you can't counter it if the time comes.
On the other side of the coin, if you do render assistance and you are not trained you can be sued. For example, if you assist in a car accident and drag someone from the wreckage who is later diagnosed with spinal injuries you could be sued for causing those injuries unless you can prove that they were in imminent danger and you are trained to move someone with spinal injuries.
Good Samaritan laws are meant to protect first responders, but against a good lawyer you can still lose.
I for one still remember Tandy 486s. They locked down both the hardware and the software. Sure it was an IBM 'compatible' system, so long as you didn't want to install new hardware or unsupported software. As computers were getting standardized Radio Shack/Tandy were trying to force consumers into buying hardware from only one source. As a result there are no more Tandy computers. Apple does the same things, but they have always maintained somewhat superior hardware which has kept them ahead. This new tablet is a mystery though. The I-Phone's success has been the availability of software. Without apps it's just another touch screen phone. So, what will be this tablets success? Is it cheaper than it's competition? Nope. Does it support more software? Not even close. Can I do useful things with it like write my novel in a coffee shop? Nope. Can I edit video with it? Nope. All I can really do with this new tablet is read books/web pages and watch video. Sure that's nifty, but at the price it's pretty worthless. If I wanted to spend $500 to impress the people around me I can think of much better uses.
Paying the private sector to put things/people into space can make sense. It's like any other payed service, and could save money. Paying the private sector to become a space agency makes no sense and seems like defense contractors at their worst.
On one hand you pay a company for a service that they can compete freely on, on the other hand you pay a company to be a service where they have no competition. Seeing how this is Washington we are talking about, they are probably going to pay companies a lot of money and have nothing in return, then blame the private sector for the failure.
Guess it pays to get the retail version vice the OEM. Lesson learned.
What upsets me the most is that if I legally purchase windows for my computer I am limited on how much I can upgrade, but if I illegally pirate it I can actually treat it like I own a copy of the OS. The same is true with the excessive DRM on DVDs and Blu-ray. It doesn't stop people from pirating, it just punishes those of us who own legal copies.
Those O-rings had a safety factor of three!
When used at the proper temperatures, which they weren't. A private company wouldn't have used them in the same situation because of the liability involved.
Yeah, NASA never cuts corners. They pay top dollar for their o-rings and take every risk seriously including silly things like supersonic foam.
Well considering the satellites need to beam the power down to earth based generation stations and these earth based stations will need to be close to population centers to avoid transmission losses, there is a reason to be afraid of this technology.
"Astrium says the latter can be addressed by using infrared lasers which, if misdirected, would not risk "cooking" anyone in their path."
So a 20kw microwave beam can cook you, but a 20kw infrared beam will feel like getting hit by fluffy bunnies? If you are transmitting large amounts of power it will be dangerous. If it's a wide beam then it is inefficient but less dangerous, if it is a narrow beam then it is more efficient but more dangerous. I can only imagine the public outcry the first time an aircraft runs into one of these beams.
We still have nothing showing that this technology has the potential to be cheaper than earth based solar.
This is not moral relativism. Moral relativism is saying that stealing is ok if you really need the money. What I am saying is two fold: The RIAA should have to PROVE the number of times someone pirated a song, not come up with arbitrary numbers because the song was available. Also the damages should be equal to the crime.
Here is some simple RIAA math: I have a CD. I turn one song into an MP3. How many songs have been pirated? None. It's still my legal right.
I then share the song with my friend, how many songs have been pirated? Two, my friend pirated it by downloading it from me, I pirated it by making it available for download.
I then get a second friend involved who. Downloads the same song. How many songs are pirated? Six. I made the song available, in the process of downloading my first friend made it available, and in the process of downloading my second friend made it available too. Please note there are only three actual pirated songs in this case and one of those is legally owned.
Four people makes it 12 pirated copies... and it goes on. These laws were based on physical copies, not systems for download which make everything you download available to everyone else.
Remember these are not criminal trails, they are civil trails. The court is not there to punish the evil doer, they are there to ensure that the Plaintiffs get paid for their loss. There is no way a single song download can be worth even their low number of $750, maybe 99 cents, but not $750. This number gets even lower when you realize that quite a number of people download songs they would otherwise have no intention to purchase. I have known people with MASSIVE MP3 collections, but I doubt they would have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars buying CDs, they would just gone without.
Piracy is not right, but let the punishment fit the crime.
The law was written with the original purpose of stopping people from counterfeiting media. The penalties as such were designed to be imposed on someone who was mass producing VHS/Cassettes/CDs/DVDs for sale. Now we have people who could have potential supplied a song to thousands of people who are being charged with the same penalties as people who HAVE created thousands of fake copies for sale. When you look at torrents, sure there have been 1000 people connected to the same bit-torrent you are connected to, does that mean you and everyone involved each created 1000 copies? The RIAA thinks so.
The law is outdated. People should pay for the crimes that they have committed, not the crimes they potentially could have committed. The making available argument cannot be used for damages. It is the equivalent to saying that we caught you shoplifting, so now you are charged with grand larceny because you could have taken the entire store.
The per song damages are equally as appalling. If I break my neighbors window, I pay for the window. A song that is available for 99 cents is not a loss of thousands of dollars to the recording labels.
In short, if you agree with the penalties that currently exist then you probably think that jay walking should be a death penalty offense and that not putting 25 cents into the coffee bank at work should be grand larceny.
Don't remember McCain getting huge contributions from Hollywood.
Democrats: Get paid by major media, want to support the machine that supports them.
Republicans: Want to show they are tough on crime by punishing the evil pirates.
No mater who wins we still lose.
You forget all the other games WoW has killed. SOE has taken it as their mission in life to turn every MMO they own into a sort of WoW clone. Easy leveling, little penalty for failure, massive numbers scrolling as damage, and above all everyone's a winner. The sad thing is that only Blizzard has been able to do WoW well, all other duplicates stand by with their lackluster games and wonder why they don't succeed with near identical gameplay and bland content.
Duplicating another companies path to success is never a good idea when you are in a market dependent on variety. Fighting for a group of players that are already satisfied is stupid. Instead of going after the hottest girl in the room they should try going after a few of ones that are ignored. Then again, I doubt MMO developers know much about dating.
Depending on the design it could save lives. Sure it could potentially be used to injure/kill people, but if you really wanted to kill people we already have stuff to do that.
The best argument against it is the Taser argument. Cops got Tasers so they would have a way of dealing with resistant people other than their guns or nightsticks. Now we have cops that use Tasers instead of pinning or even reasoning with a resisting suspect. Guy doesn't follow directions, tase him. I think even this argument is failing because police are realizing that Tasers are not their new nightstick to beat people with.
If you are afraid of the military potential using non lethal weapons against people, then remember this: They already use LETHAL weapons against people. Given the choice which do you want them to choose?
Civilian harmless = You can't possibly hurt yourself with it. Examples include... Nerf bats... nope. Water... nope. Play dough. nope. Hmmm. have to find an example.
Military harmless = You have to be negligent or intentionally trying to hurt someone with it. Examples: Lawn Darts. Nerf Bats. Tear Gas. (Yes tear gas is unpleasant, but it is designed not to cause permanent harm.)
Rubber bullets are in the same category of mostly harmless. They leave bruises, but are not designed to kill. That doesn't mean they can't be intentionally or negligently lethal, just that they are not designed to kill, kinda like lawn darts.
You have to see it to understand it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am12NZwr3Fk Vortex cannons send out a spiraling ring of air. They can hit people and things with some serious force, but it's not due to sound.
Article doesn't give too many details, but if it's a vortex cannon it could be capable stunning people without causing hearing loss. The question is whether you get stunned by a wall of air or very loud sound. I don't trust reporters to be able to distinguish the two.
Thanks for the info, I was wondering why my media PC recorded Brokeback Mountain and then started on a Queer Eye marathon.
What do you suggest? Censor him because his beliefs are not the same as your own? Or provide counter arguments which themselves give relevance to what he's saying?
Look at the KKK. For the most part we ignore them. By ignoring them we make them unimportant, all the while preserving their freedom of speech.
Yeah, just keep Westley away from them.
But the real question is how many Chinese Government officials are drawing a Google paycheck. I suspect that Google now has more spies than the Vatican.