Actually, that's not true at all, there are laws regarding which weapons are allowable and not allowable in war (international treaties and such).
Sure, chemical and biological weapons are banned, as is deliberate attempts to make shrapnel out of hard to detect/remove substances such as glass.
Beyond that, there are no caliber limits. It is a frequent urban legend, to the point I've actually heard it briefed by military people. However, once I've asked them to cite the regulation, they have been unable to. I've looked myself.
For instance, the use of landmines is currently regulated. Chemical weapons are a general no-no. Nukes are considered bad. In Vietnam, American troops carried flat bayonets, whereas Viet-Cong carried three-sided ones, because of a ban that the American troops had signed. There are also maximum calibers on guns allowed to fire on human targets, above which the gun is classified supposed to be fired at vehicles and equipment.
The USA is not signatory to most of the land mine treaties. Generally because we've 'cleaned up' our act have have land mines that 'expire'.
I'll ask for a cite on the bayonet issue, and the maximum calibers, because as far as I'm aware, and I've looked, there are NONE.
The caliber thing is more a 'rule of thumb' to keep tankers from 'wasting' their main gun ammo killing individuals when the coax would do as well.
That doesn't mean that they can't use the main gun if the coax isn't handy, it's that urgent, or whatever.
'Militarily efficient' and 'breaks the Laws of War' are two different things, after all.
So, in short, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
It's not a 'bother' or 'not bother' to me. It's 'blocked by the proxy/firewall' and I lack alternate source
In isolation, it makes the Apache crew look pretty retarded but we also don't know what else was going on at the time or anything about this location.
This is what I wonder about, but I'd prefer to see the video myself. I've seen how gun-camera footage can be taken out of context. Perhaps I can come to a better conclusion tonight.
Think of the rules of war as a set of behaviors evolved to limit conflict much like how when rutting season hits bucks don't normally kill each other, predators normally manage to keep their territories without killing each other very often. Heck, Meerkats get into a lot of fights(watching Meerkat manor recently), but on average there isn't a lot of casualties every fight.
The 'Laws of War', which predate the conventions, tends to ban certain things that are more likely to stir the population up than to resolve the conflict. Thus, they're counterproductive in the end.
By following the rules, you're only marginally less likely to win, but far more likely to end the conflict sooner, and on better terms.
Excuse me, 30mm is NOT allowed for human targets just like WP isn't supposed to be used. Using anti-aircraft/anti-vehicle weaponry against non-armored human targets goes against the Geneva Convention.
Citation, please.
I've actually read the Geneva Conventions. I've had usage of force training, etc... I am military. USAF, to be specific.
The wording of the conventions is that we aren't to use weapons that case 'unnecessary suffering'.
You are allowed to use any weapons available on any target available with very few exceptions.
Stuff considered banned: 1. Non-metallic rounds. Metal rounds work just as well, non-metallic ones designed to be harder to be removed is just being cruel. 2. Nuclear/Biological/Chemical: Comes under 'not discriminary enough', 'militarily ineffective', and 'needlesly cruel'. Especially against militaries prepared for them. 3. Hollowpoints, but only 'sortof', it's actually a prohibition against expanding/explosive rounds below a certain caliber. Plus, this is more by convention than law, since the USA is not a signer to the treaty that actually banned them, and as long as hollowpoints are demostrated to be 'more effective', they'd actually pass the standards of the Geneva conventions rather easily.
WP is more considered a chemical weapon, plus, if you're close enough to use WP, you're close enough to use other weapons, generally speaking, thus the unnecessary suffering part comes into play.
"What's wrong with this" is they had mounted infantry 100m away. The gunship crew could have just called in the coordinates and had the eyeballs check it out. They might have seen that the "AK-47" was a tripod and the "RPG" was a camera lens.
According to another poster here, they were in contact with the infantry. Infantry who were reporting they had weapons.
At which point, depending, you need to check the vision of the infantry.
Again: I haven't seen the videos. Youtube and similar sites are blocked. I'm not going to say that this incident was proper, I was just saying that once you've decided to kill people during war, as long as you do it in a way to not deliberately increase suffering you're good. You're free to use the most efficient means possible.
Thus, my objection to a video like this is one of target selection, not weapon selection. You're not supposed to go deliberately target non-combatants.
Now, using a 2k bomb on a militant truck parked next to an occupied school would get me going 'WTF' at the weapon selection, especially if there was, say, an A-10 available to hit it with their gun. GAU-8 is more selective than a 2k bomb.
The takeaway being, theres nothing to see here, its progress as usual. The big problem is what happens under 16nm. Thats the point at which current optical lithography is impossible, even using half or quarter wavelength, and EUV with immersion litho.
So, around 1/2 of what this factory will produce? That would translate, in a perfect world, to around 4X of what the 25nm process would create.
Call it 16X the storage per area of current processes.
Given that SSDs are STILL something like 100X the price per gigabyte than hard drives, will we ever see the end of the spinning platter?
Matter of fact, I'll jinx myself here:
I'm afraid that we're going to see a plateuing of storage capabilities within my lifetime. One guy I was talking with was convinced that hard drives have almost reached their economical max density, while convinced that flash would surpass them in five years. Personally, I placed it more like 10-15, but with concerns about just how small they could go with the process. I figured we'd have more room, personally.
Disclaimer: I'm at work, and they have video stuff blocked, so I have not seen the video
What really got me was that they used a GUNSHIP on HUMAN TARGETS.
And what's wrong with this? The usage of 'gunships' on human targets is valid by the laws of war. There's normally nothing special on how you kill people during war.
Where I WILL get upset is the targeting of non-combatants, whether by gunship, missile, or even humble assault rifle. I understand that there can and will be collateral damage if you need to use something with explosives to take out a target, but sometimes this is necessary.
What are the chances of the final safety mechanism ever deteriorating or otherwise failing due to age?
Pretty much impossible. Even if the explosives had gone off, the force of the impact deformed the explosive charges such that even if they detonate that the bomb won't go nuclear. That's even without considering the 50 years of decay taking out other components.
At least in the stores I frequent, the brown sugar I buy is real brown sugar and not more expensive than the stuff made by adding molasses to white sugar.
Most Coyotes I've heard reports about charge a couple thousand per head.
I wasn't for the fence, fences don't work against smart people - I mean, look at the measures a high security prison needs to have to prevent escapes, and that's with inmates who have limited access to tools and supplies.
Personally, I'd revamp employment laws to make it harder for illegals to get work, revamp immigration to make it easier to legally immigrate, then toss violators into prison camps for a year to make sure they're not making money trying to work here illegally. Then the illegal problem will decline a bit.
Oh, and do something to fix Mexico's and Central/South America's domestic problems.
And stealing a few hundred dollars worth of stuff isn't sufficient provocation to be worth taking theirs.
How much do you make an hour? Are you sure it's only a 'few hundred'? That they're only after your stuff, not to cause harm to you or your family?
Somebody steals $400 worth of stuff from me it's like stealing a week of my life. And my deductible is $500, so it's not like 'insurance will cover it'.
I get a lot of people like you, I think that the fundemental difference is that you're looking at it like an execution - the homeowner is acting as judge, jury, and executioner. Others look at it as self defense, they're defending themselves from potential harm.
Finally, there's the arguement that sure - you value human life. But the flip side is that the home intruder values his own life so little that he's willing to risk it over a 'couple hundred'. Could be a couple thousand if you have jewelry in the house. Sometimes they'll look to beat you to disclose where you keep further cash, or to disclose bank cards and pins so they can get even more money out of you.
Threatening with a gun maybe, but the problem with threatening with a gun is that if he calls your bluff you have no choice but to shoot him or retreat (which may not be possible)- its better to just attack with non-lethal weapons.
Beat a criminal with a bat without justification for using lethal force and you'll find yourself up on assault and battery charges. If you're actually in that situation, you should use the most effective means available - in my case that's a gun.
Another point would be that studies have shown that confrontations with guns actually tends to lead to fewer injuries to all parties - criminals that will argue with a bat, pepper spray, or taser won't argue with a gun.
Hostile intent doesn't mean you have the right to lethal force in any state. It would allow you to attack him certainly, and probably threaten him with a gun, but not to shoot him without further provocation. Which doesn't mean you wouldn't get away with it with a conservative jury and a good lawyer,
You need to study up on usage of force laws. Pretty much any usage of force can be played into being potentially lethal, thus the only time you're allowed to use force is in fear of your life or serious injury. At which point, whether you're being threatened by bare fists or a gun, you're allowed to use any and all levels of force* to stop it. Whether that's shooting them, braining them with a shovel/hammer, running them over with a car, to name just a few examples.
There are many states in the Union where you wouldn't even be charged. It'd almost be like a checklist: 1. Subject was shot in shooter's legal residence: Y 2. Subject had no legal right to be in shooter's residence at the time of the shooting: Y 3. Subject had an 'extensive' criminal record, with history of B&E and/or violence: Y (Nice, not necessary. If present, don't bother checking additional factors)
Result: Thank the shooter, remove the body, and head back to the station to fill out the reports.
*Without getting silly
but the idea of excessive force exists pretty much everywhere.
I'd be very, very careful about wandering around outside your home state then. Then again, as long as you're not breaking & entering you're pretty much safe. Personally, I think you need to look up the castle doctrine and self defense laws - in many states a stranger breaking into an occupied home is an automatic assumption of hostile intent such that lethal force is authorized.
I'm not a lawyer, but I am a self defense proponent. I don't advocate shooting anybody who doesn't present an imminent threat to life or limb, but being familiar with self defense laws is a must in my position.
After a couple of thousand years, you'll find it pretty hard to locate someone who isn't at least part celtic. Finding someone who isn't part native American in the USA is a lot easier.
Not as easy as you might think. I look white-bread american, but I had a great-great grandmother who was Native American. Don't remember what tribe off the bat, but it's there.
Most who doesn't have Native American would be the more recent immigrants.
Beyond that, you start digging into history, it's not like the Native Americans were all that nice either - they had a lot of wars themselves, some of which were over territory. They might not have had a concept for individual ownership of land, but they did know territories and resources.
It's the convenience factor. They're betting that you'll buy the book from them using the wireless rather than dig up the USB cable and use the computer, or buy stuff when the computer isn't handy rather than wait until you get home.
Wait a second - they're probably also depending at least partially on impulse purchases - you're more likely to reconsider purchasing something if you gotta wait 4 hours until you get home to use the computer to purchase a book or other content.
[quote]And that, of course, is the entire point of this legislation. The idea is that "subversives" won't register. That way you get to fine and imprison people for belonging to organisations, all the time pretending that you are not infringing on their rights of speech or assembly.[/quote]
Agreed. Not that I agree with this law, but consider - Terrorist organizations don't operate in a vacuum, you tend to have leaders that keep their hands 'clean' - You get somebody who recruits people to the organization, but doesn't engage in any illegal acts themselves. Somebody else who holds 'theoretical' bomb-making classes/discussions. Yet another who gives 'example plans'.
Plausible deniability, in other words.
This would be the equivalent of busting mobsters on tax fraud, not anything more 'illegal' like drug running, assault, murder, etc...
Do you live in Arizona or something? Here in Chicago, I don't see that many 20 year-old cars.
You wouldn't have to. Consider cars like a population. Just because people can look forward to a 78 year life expectancy doesn't mean that you'll see all that many 78 year olds.
Back to cars.
Right off the bat, you'd expect to see around 5%, or 1 out of 20, cars to be 19 years or older if demand was even and cars were promptly retired at 20 years.
But there's more to it, demand isn't even. 1. Increasing population - there's more people today, more families, more multi-car families, ergo more cars today than 5, 10, or 15 years ago. So this will youthen the average age of cars you see - even if their lifespan is the same. I'm discounting 'collector' cars, btw, I don't think there's enough Model-T's around to make a real difference, but they'd increase average vehicle lifespan a bit. 2. Regionalization - as cars age they do tend to migrate a bit. Once you get into rural areas you tend to get older vehicles - people with lower incomes yet more space and experience to do the maintenance on them. I live in a tiny town, I can rebuild an engine in my driveway if I have to. A city person living in an apartment typically can't. There's rules about that kind of stuff even in many suburban areas, you just don't have the space to hold a non-functioning vehicle for a month or two while you fix it in your spare time. 3. It probably discounts accidents - it only looks at cars removed by 'natural causes', IE sold to the junkyard rather than being totaled in an accident.
Exactly. Now, with Simpsons porn you have the possibility of copyright violations, but the whole point behind making child pornography illegal is the same as making ivory illegal - by outlawing the trade of items that result from an illegal act you depress the market.
By outlawing the sale of ivory*, you prevent the slaughter of elephants to collect it. Theoretically, at least.
By outlawing child porn, you prevent the exploitation of children to create it. There are arguements that by preventing people from viewing child porn, especially those that get their jollies off on it, you make them less likely to molest children, but I don't fully buy into that. The other arguement is that a dude with child porn is more likely to molest children, so better to lock them away before they do anything serious. I don't particularly like that line of reasoning either - as a male I'm equiped with everything needed to rape a woman, should I be locked up?
These lawmakers have allowed their pedo-hysteria to warp their sanity.
The good old 'It's for the CHILDREN!!!!' hysteria. I wouldn't be surprised if the sex offender registries have resulted in more murders than prevented molestations.
I don't really have problems with them using it when they would have used 'other' less lethal weapons anyways, such as tear gas and water hoses.
This probably won't replace shotgun bean bags or tasers, they're individual weapons while this is a mass weapon.
The problem comes from proper usage - potentially violent crowds are often led by 'professional' exciters, and they'd be smart enough to know that if you can get people within that 10 meter unsafe zone the operators are a lot less likely to set it off, and it's not like they can have cops standing in the same area to prevent them. They need a clear line. A country/force that willing to kill has more traditional and brutal choices available to it.
My concern is that there's a lot of overlap between 'disabling that fit young man' and 'killing grandma'. An attack that will kill grandma might not even faze a fit young adult.
Freeware really is the worst of both worlds: no source to check and use for support and/or changes, and no vendor to get support from.
Basically. The other poster misunderstood a number of my points.
By 'warranty' I meant more like 'car warranty'. And yes, you CAN sue microsoft if they screw up badly enough. Or Oracle, etc... Or go to a different vender, etc...
"Auditable binaries"? When was the last time you audited one? Ever read a Microsoft EULA? Neither the government nor anyone else will be going after Microsoft for anything, even if they provided a back door. I seriously doubt anyone can extract ANY remedy beyond possibly a refund of purchase price. Again, read the EULA. Feel the "protection".
I'm not qualified, really, to audit code. What I DO know is that performing a security audit on a pure binary is hell. Thus doing so is uneconomical. Doing so from source code is much more economical.
Not going after microsoft? Well, microsoft's very position makes it more 'trustworthy' than a small time software operation. If the incident's bad enough, heck yeah the feds and other companies would go after them.
You mean like having the vendor go out of business and you can't get the source code?
Like I said, it happens anyways. Government rules are to actually favor the open source alternative, but they want it licensed. Heck, Firefox didn't have a hard time getting approved. The benefits of being popular I guess.
As for warranties, back to the EULA once again. Find me a software license that grants any warranty or accepts any liability beyond possibly refunding the purchase price. Just one. Got links to share?
Not in the licensing department, sorry. By 'warranty' I was actually talking about a multitude of after-purchase support options besides just monetary relief, which we DO get.
There have been several cases where large software companies were found guilty of patent or copyright infringement. Have ANY of their customers ever been charged with infringement for merely possessing the infringing software? Again, where are the cases and let's have some links.
Exactly. By buying a license from company A for their 'product', if any code is found to be in violation of copyright they go after company A, not the government or other company.
Makes you wonder how valuable this "protection" is.
Never said it's absolute, it's risk management. And you're confusing what I think and believe, and what the people above me who actually have purchasing power think and believe.
I was posting what the higher ups think, of course it's going to be wrong on several points. I was posting about how there's a lot of FUD out there, wasn't I?
There's the real concerns, then there's what the higher ups are afraid of. They intersect somewhat.
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Actually, that's not true at all, there are laws regarding which weapons are allowable and not allowable in war (international treaties and such).
Sure, chemical and biological weapons are banned, as is deliberate attempts to make shrapnel out of hard to detect/remove substances such as glass.
Beyond that, there are no caliber limits. It is a frequent urban legend, to the point I've actually heard it briefed by military people. However, once I've asked them to cite the regulation, they have been unable to. I've looked myself.
For instance, the use of landmines is currently regulated. Chemical weapons are a general no-no. Nukes are considered bad. In Vietnam, American troops carried flat bayonets, whereas Viet-Cong carried three-sided ones, because of a ban that the American troops had signed. There are also maximum calibers on guns allowed to fire on human targets, above which the gun is classified supposed to be fired at vehicles and equipment.
The USA is not signatory to most of the land mine treaties. Generally because we've 'cleaned up' our act have have land mines that 'expire'.
I'll ask for a cite on the bayonet issue, and the maximum calibers, because as far as I'm aware, and I've looked, there are NONE.
The caliber thing is more a 'rule of thumb' to keep tankers from 'wasting' their main gun ammo killing individuals when the coax would do as well.
That doesn't mean that they can't use the main gun if the coax isn't handy, it's that urgent, or whatever.
'Militarily efficient' and 'breaks the Laws of War' are two different things, after all.
So, in short, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
I actually did bother to watch the video.
It's not a 'bother' or 'not bother' to me. It's 'blocked by the proxy/firewall' and I lack alternate source
In isolation, it makes the Apache crew look pretty retarded but we also don't know what else was going on at the time or anything about this location.
This is what I wonder about, but I'd prefer to see the video myself. I've seen how gun-camera footage can be taken out of context. Perhaps I can come to a better conclusion tonight.
Think of the rules of war as a set of behaviors evolved to limit conflict much like how when rutting season hits bucks don't normally kill each other, predators normally manage to keep their territories without killing each other very often. Heck, Meerkats get into a lot of fights(watching Meerkat manor recently), but on average there isn't a lot of casualties every fight.
The 'Laws of War', which predate the conventions, tends to ban certain things that are more likely to stir the population up than to resolve the conflict. Thus, they're counterproductive in the end.
By following the rules, you're only marginally less likely to win, but far more likely to end the conflict sooner, and on better terms.
Excuse me, 30mm is NOT allowed for human targets just like WP isn't supposed to be used. Using anti-aircraft/anti-vehicle weaponry against non-armored human targets goes against the Geneva Convention.
Citation, please.
I've actually read the Geneva Conventions. I've had usage of force training, etc... I am military. USAF, to be specific.
The wording of the conventions is that we aren't to use weapons that case 'unnecessary suffering'.
You are allowed to use any weapons available on any target available with very few exceptions.
Stuff considered banned:
1. Non-metallic rounds. Metal rounds work just as well, non-metallic ones designed to be harder to be removed is just being cruel.
2. Nuclear/Biological/Chemical: Comes under 'not discriminary enough', 'militarily ineffective', and 'needlesly cruel'. Especially against militaries prepared for them.
3. Hollowpoints, but only 'sortof', it's actually a prohibition against expanding/explosive rounds below a certain caliber. Plus, this is more by convention than law, since the USA is not a signer to the treaty that actually banned them, and as long as hollowpoints are demostrated to be 'more effective', they'd actually pass the standards of the Geneva conventions rather easily.
WP is more considered a chemical weapon, plus, if you're close enough to use WP, you're close enough to use other weapons, generally speaking, thus the unnecessary suffering part comes into play.
"What's wrong with this" is they had mounted infantry 100m away. The gunship crew could have just called in the coordinates and had the eyeballs check it out. They might have seen that the "AK-47" was a tripod and the "RPG" was a camera lens.
According to another poster here, they were in contact with the infantry. Infantry who were reporting they had weapons.
At which point, depending, you need to check the vision of the infantry.
Again: I haven't seen the videos. Youtube and similar sites are blocked. I'm not going to say that this incident was proper, I was just saying that once you've decided to kill people during war, as long as you do it in a way to not deliberately increase suffering you're good. You're free to use the most efficient means possible.
Thus, my objection to a video like this is one of target selection, not weapon selection. You're not supposed to go deliberately target non-combatants.
Now, using a 2k bomb on a militant truck parked next to an occupied school would get me going 'WTF' at the weapon selection, especially if there was, say, an A-10 available to hit it with their gun. GAU-8 is more selective than a 2k bomb.
The takeaway being, theres nothing to see here, its progress as usual. The big problem is what happens under 16nm. Thats the point at which current optical lithography is impossible, even using half or quarter wavelength, and EUV with immersion litho.
So, around 1/2 of what this factory will produce? That would translate, in a perfect world, to around 4X of what the 25nm process would create.
Call it 16X the storage per area of current processes.
Given that SSDs are STILL something like 100X the price per gigabyte than hard drives, will we ever see the end of the spinning platter?
Matter of fact, I'll jinx myself here:
I'm afraid that we're going to see a plateuing of storage capabilities within my lifetime. One guy I was talking with was convinced that hard drives have almost reached their economical max density, while convinced that flash would surpass them in five years. Personally, I placed it more like 10-15, but with concerns about just how small they could go with the process. I figured we'd have more room, personally.
Disclaimer: I'm at work, and they have video stuff blocked, so I have not seen the video
What really got me was that they used a GUNSHIP on HUMAN TARGETS.
And what's wrong with this? The usage of 'gunships' on human targets is valid by the laws of war. There's normally nothing special on how you kill people during war.
Where I WILL get upset is the targeting of non-combatants, whether by gunship, missile, or even humble assault rifle. I understand that there can and will be collateral damage if you need to use something with explosives to take out a target, but sometimes this is necessary.
Personally, while I find it interesting, I'd like to know just how much extra data storage this would enable?
32nm to 25 nm would, what, increase the theoretical max density of flash by 64%? IE instead of getting a 16GB chip you'd get a 24GB one.
At the same price once you have all the details worked out, of course.
45nm to 25 nm by my figuring would allow 3.24 times as much storage in a given size of chip.
What are the chances of the final safety mechanism ever deteriorating or otherwise failing due to age?
Pretty much impossible. Even if the explosives had gone off, the force of the impact deformed the explosive charges such that even if they detonate that the bomb won't go nuclear. That's even without considering the 50 years of decay taking out other components.
At least in the stores I frequent, the brown sugar I buy is real brown sugar and not more expensive than the stuff made by adding molasses to white sugar.
I certainly wouldn't say so. Europeans were rather expansionist back in the day.
and it only costs them $10 to get here
Most Coyotes I've heard reports about charge a couple thousand per head.
I wasn't for the fence, fences don't work against smart people - I mean, look at the measures a high security prison needs to have to prevent escapes, and that's with inmates who have limited access to tools and supplies.
Personally, I'd revamp employment laws to make it harder for illegals to get work, revamp immigration to make it easier to legally immigrate, then toss violators into prison camps for a year to make sure they're not making money trying to work here illegally. Then the illegal problem will decline a bit.
Oh, and do something to fix Mexico's and Central/South America's domestic problems.
somebody whispers): "Insurance is now mandatory."
Ahhhh sh
Healthcare savings plan and high deductible insurance.
You still pay your doctor via 'cash', well, debit card, for normal things, but you're now covered if you get something catastrophic.
Hispanics aren't pure native american. They're also descendants of immigrants from Spain and Portugal and such.
And stealing a few hundred dollars worth of stuff isn't sufficient provocation to be worth taking theirs.
How much do you make an hour? Are you sure it's only a 'few hundred'? That they're only after your stuff, not to cause harm to you or your family?
Somebody steals $400 worth of stuff from me it's like stealing a week of my life. And my deductible is $500, so it's not like 'insurance will cover it'.
I get a lot of people like you, I think that the fundemental difference is that you're looking at it like an execution - the homeowner is acting as judge, jury, and executioner. Others look at it as self defense, they're defending themselves from potential harm.
Finally, there's the arguement that sure - you value human life. But the flip side is that the home intruder values his own life so little that he's willing to risk it over a 'couple hundred'. Could be a couple thousand if you have jewelry in the house. Sometimes they'll look to beat you to disclose where you keep further cash, or to disclose bank cards and pins so they can get even more money out of you.
Threatening with a gun maybe, but the problem with threatening with a gun is that if he calls your bluff you have no choice but to shoot him or retreat (which may not be possible)- its better to just attack with non-lethal weapons.
Beat a criminal with a bat without justification for using lethal force and you'll find yourself up on assault and battery charges. If you're actually in that situation, you should use the most effective means available - in my case that's a gun.
Another point would be that studies have shown that confrontations with guns actually tends to lead to fewer injuries to all parties - criminals that will argue with a bat, pepper spray, or taser won't argue with a gun.
Hostile intent doesn't mean you have the right to lethal force in any state. It would allow you to attack him certainly, and probably threaten him with a gun, but not to shoot him without further provocation. Which doesn't mean you wouldn't get away with it with a conservative jury and a good lawyer,
You need to study up on usage of force laws. Pretty much any usage of force can be played into being potentially lethal, thus the only time you're allowed to use force is in fear of your life or serious injury. At which point, whether you're being threatened by bare fists or a gun, you're allowed to use any and all levels of force* to stop it. Whether that's shooting them, braining them with a shovel/hammer, running them over with a car, to name just a few examples.
There are many states in the Union where you wouldn't even be charged. It'd almost be like a checklist:
1. Subject was shot in shooter's legal residence: Y
2. Subject had no legal right to be in shooter's residence at the time of the shooting: Y
3. Subject had an 'extensive' criminal record, with history of B&E and/or violence: Y (Nice, not necessary. If present, don't bother checking additional factors)
Result: Thank the shooter, remove the body, and head back to the station to fill out the reports.
*Without getting silly
but the idea of excessive force exists pretty much everywhere.
I'd be very, very careful about wandering around outside your home state then. Then again, as long as you're not breaking & entering you're pretty much safe. Personally, I think you need to look up the castle doctrine and self defense laws - in many states a stranger breaking into an occupied home is an automatic assumption of hostile intent such that lethal force is authorized.
I'm not a lawyer, but I am a self defense proponent. I don't advocate shooting anybody who doesn't present an imminent threat to life or limb, but being familiar with self defense laws is a must in my position.
After a couple of thousand years, you'll find it pretty hard to locate someone who isn't at least part celtic. Finding someone who isn't part native American in the USA is a lot easier.
Not as easy as you might think. I look white-bread american, but I had a great-great grandmother who was Native American. Don't remember what tribe off the bat, but it's there.
Most who doesn't have Native American would be the more recent immigrants.
Beyond that, you start digging into history, it's not like the Native Americans were all that nice either - they had a lot of wars themselves, some of which were over territory. They might not have had a concept for individual ownership of land, but they did know territories and resources.
It's the convenience factor. They're betting that you'll buy the book from them using the wireless rather than dig up the USB cable and use the computer, or buy stuff when the computer isn't handy rather than wait until you get home.
Wait a second - they're probably also depending at least partially on impulse purchases - you're more likely to reconsider purchasing something if you gotta wait 4 hours until you get home to use the computer to purchase a book or other content.
[quote]And that, of course, is the entire point of this legislation. The idea is that "subversives" won't register. That way you get to fine and imprison people for belonging to organisations, all the time pretending that you are not infringing on their rights of speech or assembly.[/quote]
Agreed. Not that I agree with this law, but consider - Terrorist organizations don't operate in a vacuum, you tend to have leaders that keep their hands 'clean' - You get somebody who recruits people to the organization, but doesn't engage in any illegal acts themselves. Somebody else who holds 'theoretical' bomb-making classes/discussions. Yet another who gives 'example plans'.
Plausible deniability, in other words.
This would be the equivalent of busting mobsters on tax fraud, not anything more 'illegal' like drug running, assault, murder, etc...
Do you live in Arizona or something? Here in Chicago, I don't see that many 20 year-old cars.
You wouldn't have to. Consider cars like a population. Just because people can look forward to a 78 year life expectancy doesn't mean that you'll see all that many 78 year olds.
Back to cars.
Right off the bat, you'd expect to see around 5%, or 1 out of 20, cars to be 19 years or older if demand was even and cars were promptly retired at 20 years.
But there's more to it, demand isn't even.
1. Increasing population - there's more people today, more families, more multi-car families, ergo more cars today than 5, 10, or 15 years ago. So this will youthen the average age of cars you see - even if their lifespan is the same. I'm discounting 'collector' cars, btw, I don't think there's enough Model-T's around to make a real difference, but they'd increase average vehicle lifespan a bit.
2. Regionalization - as cars age they do tend to migrate a bit. Once you get into rural areas you tend to get older vehicles - people with lower incomes yet more space and experience to do the maintenance on them. I live in a tiny town, I can rebuild an engine in my driveway if I have to. A city person living in an apartment typically can't. There's rules about that kind of stuff even in many suburban areas, you just don't have the space to hold a non-functioning vehicle for a month or two while you fix it in your spare time.
3. It probably discounts accidents - it only looks at cars removed by 'natural causes', IE sold to the junkyard rather than being totaled in an accident.
How exactly do you exploit a cartoon child?
Exactly. Now, with Simpsons porn you have the possibility of copyright violations, but the whole point behind making child pornography illegal is the same as making ivory illegal - by outlawing the trade of items that result from an illegal act you depress the market.
By outlawing the sale of ivory*, you prevent the slaughter of elephants to collect it. Theoretically, at least.
By outlawing child porn, you prevent the exploitation of children to create it. There are arguements that by preventing people from viewing child porn, especially those that get their jollies off on it, you make them less likely to molest children, but I don't fully buy into that. The other arguement is that a dude with child porn is more likely to molest children, so better to lock them away before they do anything serious. I don't particularly like that line of reasoning either - as a male I'm equiped with everything needed to rape a woman, should I be locked up?
These lawmakers have allowed their pedo-hysteria to warp their sanity.
The good old 'It's for the CHILDREN!!!!' hysteria. I wouldn't be surprised if the sex offender registries have resulted in more murders than prevented molestations.
*except documented legacy items.
I don't really have problems with them using it when they would have used 'other' less lethal weapons anyways, such as tear gas and water hoses.
This probably won't replace shotgun bean bags or tasers, they're individual weapons while this is a mass weapon.
The problem comes from proper usage - potentially violent crowds are often led by 'professional' exciters, and they'd be smart enough to know that if you can get people within that 10 meter unsafe zone the operators are a lot less likely to set it off, and it's not like they can have cops standing in the same area to prevent them. They need a clear line. A country/force that willing to kill has more traditional and brutal choices available to it.
My concern is that there's a lot of overlap between 'disabling that fit young man' and 'killing grandma'. An attack that will kill grandma might not even faze a fit young adult.
Freeware really is the worst of both worlds: no source to check and use for support and/or changes, and no vendor to get support from.
Basically. The other poster misunderstood a number of my points.
By 'warranty' I meant more like 'car warranty'. And yes, you CAN sue microsoft if they screw up badly enough. Or Oracle, etc... Or go to a different vender, etc...
"Auditable binaries"? When was the last time you audited one? Ever read a Microsoft EULA? Neither the government nor anyone else will be going after Microsoft for anything, even if they provided a back door. I seriously doubt anyone can extract ANY remedy beyond possibly a refund of purchase price. Again, read the EULA. Feel the "protection".
I'm not qualified, really, to audit code. What I DO know is that performing a security audit on a pure binary is hell. Thus doing so is uneconomical. Doing so from source code is much more economical.
Not going after microsoft? Well, microsoft's very position makes it more 'trustworthy' than a small time software operation. If the incident's bad enough, heck yeah the feds and other companies would go after them.
You mean like having the vendor go out of business and you can't get the source code?
Like I said, it happens anyways. Government rules are to actually favor the open source alternative, but they want it licensed. Heck, Firefox didn't have a hard time getting approved. The benefits of being popular I guess.
As for warranties, back to the EULA once again. Find me a software license that grants any warranty or accepts any liability beyond possibly refunding the purchase price. Just one. Got links to share?
Not in the licensing department, sorry. By 'warranty' I was actually talking about a multitude of after-purchase support options besides just monetary relief, which we DO get.
There have been several cases where large software companies were found guilty of patent or copyright infringement. Have ANY of their customers ever been charged with infringement for merely possessing the infringing software? Again, where are the cases and let's have some links.
Exactly. By buying a license from company A for their 'product', if any code is found to be in violation of copyright they go after company A, not the government or other company.
Makes you wonder how valuable this "protection" is.
Never said it's absolute, it's risk management. And you're confusing what I think and believe, and what the people above me who actually have purchasing power think and believe.
I was posting what the higher ups think, of course it's going to be wrong on several points. I was posting about how there's a lot of FUD out there, wasn't I?
There's the real concerns, then there's what the higher ups are afraid of. They intersect somewhat.
I reckon that the US government are one of these...
They are. Besides which, MS goes for various 'common criteria' certifications which means independent parties checking over the code.