While I consider the whole thing a very bad idea, there are advantages to having an RFID device, though there are no UNIQUE advantages that I can think of to having one implanted in you.
In other words there are substitutes that will do almost or exactly the same thing.
There are advantages to having an ID number that travels with you. Unique identification for banking transactions, secure facilities, hospitals, and prisons.
Prisons? Well, no one said the advantage need necessarily be for you. A "no one with this tag gets out of the building" rule. (yes, there are bad things that could occur, there are problems with this, but the question was about possible advantages).
There are advantages to being findable with a large transmitter/receiver. Hiking, etc.
Oh, let's see...what else.... Hmm. Well, some minimalists might like the idea of no longer needing to carry ID/credit card/cash/whatever. You could be sure children traveling alone on an airline were picked up by the right people. You could ensure that kidnapped children could be identified if ever taken to a hospital. You could identify more bodies (that hadn't been incinerated).
But all (or almost all) of these things could be accomplished by other methods. Nevertheless, they are advantages.
In further news, mathematicians allege The Count is cluttering up the domain of natural numbers.
"It's a travesty, I tell you! One? Two? Three? Where does it all stop? Pretty soon there'll be none left at all!"
The Count recently purchased 9111 and 4040 - "numosquatting" two popular numbers. Numosquatting is a technique of buying numbers near or around more famous numbers, so that people who mistype the intended number get the "numosquatted" number instead.
When asked for comment, The Count said "There are a lot of numbers out there. So many I cannot even count them! Me! Oh, but let me try: one! two! three! four!"
Several hours later, The Count was reached again for comment. "Anyways, the point is that there are a lot of numbers out there. These whiny people wouldn't be happy even if we went over to the Real numbers. I mean, let's say I buy 405, right? They'll say it's 'too close to 404!' - look, there's a whole lot of numbers in between! But no, that's their special number and they can't have anything even infinitely far away from it."
"Look, if they want to make it to where no one can have any number near their special number, they should buy those numbers up too - they're asking for their single-number purchase to be equal to ten, a hundred, a million of mine!" continued The Count, "A hundred million! A billion! Ten billion! One hundred billion!" At which point this reporter's cell phone died.
When asked for rebuttal, the owner of 404 stated "that just, like, your opinion, man."
Indeed, and customers have a right to choose which companies they do business with. When Yahoo! operates in China, it should comply with Chinese law, no matter how evil it is.
No.
It is morally wrong to obey a bad law. It would be wrong of me to turn in an escaping slave back in 1810. It would be wrong of me to point out unregistered jews back in 1940. It would be morally wrong of me to turn over my Japanese-descendant friends back at the same time, and it would be wrong of me to cooperate with the police of China now.
All of these things were required by the law of the time, and they were all evil.
If you wish to argue that in order to provide some benefit to the people, the company should follow the country's laws - this is the philosophy of engagement - then I would suggest this: make it so that it is exceedingly unlikely you will ever have to cooperate.
Post notice that the police may request access to your account for any reason and at any time. Not in small print, but in big letters. Make sure the users of your service are aware of the things you may be required to do which you find morally unconsciousable.
"Brother, if you are an escaping slave I shall have to turn you in - are you, as you appear to be, a freedman in fear of his safety?"
I would like to reply to your postscript as well: there are some of us who believe that the Constitution doesn't define the rights of citizens but the only powers of government - that citizen and resident alien are alike in its powers (save for deportation). In this I imagine I am as you. I believe that the great threat to the rights of resident aliens has been the nature of deportation courts - shrouded from the public eye, laughable standards of evidence, and essentially a client of the executive body.
The new threat - a far more terrifying one for most, but a less common threat - is the creation of a new concept of "enemy combatant". I confess ignorance regarding any USSC decisions making resident aliens less than citizens in rights - save for the animal of deportation and the beast of enemy combatant. If you have the time, I would appreciate a few pointers.
There are three different philosophies regarding computer control:
Computer takes precendence
Human takes precendence (think auto-pilot)
Computer assists human
The trouble is that most engineering problems are approached as either 1 or 2. Part of the reason for this is that, especially in a real-time system, 3 is the most difficult to do.
Computer assistance also requires the most thinking and creativity on the part of the engineer. Consider the issue of driving: what portions of driving would best be assisted by a computer? Not where man is replaced by the machine, but assisted - offered options.
The best chess playing system known right now is an expert human assisted by a chess computer.
As far as cars go, we need to get out of the man/machine-divide concept. Maybe someday we'll be able to have fully-automated cars, but until then....
Well that, and when we TRIED to make it illegal we discovered a fun new way to give organized crime lots of money and power. Really, the US is STILL recovering from the effects of alcohol prohibition. The do-gooders *really* screwed the pooch on that one, and created far more problems than they solved. More drinking, more crime, more violence, and still all the nasty bathtub gin they could stomach.
It's good to remember that prohibition was extremely popular at the time. It wasn't a bunch of religious wackos pushing it through - the wackos were the ones who were against it!
Drinking was also on the decline, and had been for several years.
It's also important to remember that low-point beer was legal at the time. Yeah, the same watered-down piss that a few states inflict upon their consituency. So, the marginal desire for hard liquor, high-point beer, and wine - that is, the desire that wasn't satisfied by "non-intoxicating" beverages such as low-point beer - was enough to create crime syndicates, encourage wide-scale criminal activity and disrespect for the law, and get people killed through adulterated goods.
A little desire goes a long way.
Yes, drug companies are probably behind the harassment the FDA puts any non-patent drugs through. Though in this case it's probably less monetary pressure than the dislike of "unproven" drugs. They refer to the fact that naturally-ocurring herbs and such don't have to go through the same testing regime as synthetic drugs as a "loophole" to give you an idea.
The issue is that there are two systems: the political system and the market system. The desire for illegal drugs now (and high-point beer then - along with the atmosphere it created) is enough to create a thriving market. It is insufficient to change the political system.
It's the difference between "supply and demand" and "public choice".
Synthetic alcohol will probably never make a serious encounter with the public conscience (supply and demand), and will be killed politically (public choice).
Democracies fall because the public can be bribed.
Parliamentary governments fall because they either devolve into
democracies, or they appoint a dictator because they can't get anything done.
Our constitutional republic is structured so that state governments
have broader areas of control than the national government[1], but those
walls have been broken down. Once it was discovered that, even though
it's technically easier to influence state policy, pandering
and political acts are more effective and visible at the national level the
fight against constitutional restrictions began in true.
If we fall, it will be either because we have created a dictatorship or a
democracy at the national level.
I believe the cure isn't better policies at the national level, it's the
reaffirmation of the power of the states.
Unfortunately, a quick look at how many public-interest causes primarily lobby at the
national level versus the state level is rather disenheartening.[2]
Though all may not be lost - as ideologues and ninnies have controlled the federal government,
it has set up an antagonism with state and city governments. The recent movement (largely symbolic)
by states and cities to forbid police cooperation with the USAPATRIOT act and - even more promising -
with some aspects of the drug war[3], and issuing proclamations condemning national acts...well,
it's heartening.
[1] - it's worth noting that corruption at the state and city
level is many times worse than the wet dreams of the federal congress.
[2] - I don't have any direct numbers here - going off memory and
a survey of some causes that I know. If anyone has better numbers....
[3] - Several states (California among them, I believe) have forbidden
their officers from providing support to the DEA in drug raids. Some have done
this for cannabis, as they have medical marijuana laws. Others have done it for
financial reasons.
By bombing Iran Bush and flagging the abortion and gay marriage issues the republicans will be assured of a win in the next election.
Iran and Immigration (illegal and otherwise) seem to be the big issues being set up in the upcoming election.
They're quite effective, too. My dad is a Republican, but he's grown to dislike them very much with Bush.
However, he remains a nativist - so the Republicans might just get his vote again. He'll dislike it, but it will
be "too important" to do otherwise.
Remember Bush v Gore? Remember how important it was that Gore not be elected? Gosh, I even got caught up in the
rhetoric. Didn't vote for Bush, but I did get caught up in it.
The load on the root servers would be intolerable. Currently they only need to store IIRC 300 TLD's. I don't know the real number but it must be les than 10000.
I speak from ignorance regarding the specifics of hosting a DNS root server, but I imagine that connection handling takes up more CPU time than the lookups. Even 10,000,000 TLD referrer entries would fit into the memory of a semi-modern server.
If you like, have a deed splitting and deed transfer fee to pay for root servers, so they're not served by good graces. Hell, have a yearly hosting charge for deed holders.
Seriously. Exclude the current TLDs, but
auction off all of the rest of them. Someone out there
would own.a through.aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, etc, etc, etc.
There's old auction methods for dividing up continuous goods.
There'd be no need to debate the merits
of whether this or that TLD should be approved or provide
a justification for their existence. The separation
between.com,.net,.info, and the rest has long since gone.
Also, it would keep anyone from having a choke-hold on
the DNS system like the US does now.
Auction them off, draw up deeds, make them property - resellable and divisible. Let people decide their own meanings for DNS names.
The vast majority of the time, the judicial branch is completely left out of the loop until someone is hurt by a law.
(note to parent: your post indicates that you're familiar with much of this - I try to make my posts self-sufficient so that people unfamiliar with the thread can read them. My apologies for redundancy)
Well, there's two cases to consider: 1) you have been prosecuted, 2) you fear prosecution.
1 is relatively straightforward.
In 2, you seek an injunction against prosecution. IIRC the case for an injunction against prosecution cannot rest on the particulars ("The law forbids black dogs while mine is brown with black patches"), but on the merits of the law ("the law forbidding black dogs, yet there is no reason to single out black dogs"). Either that or you can try carving out an entire section of the law ("The law cannot apply to dogs that never leave the home or yard, only dogs that appear in public").
One of the most famous cases of our time, Roe v Wade, was an injunction against prosecution. They do happen, and they can be successful.
There are many reasons why the US Supremes would reject the case - often times it's due to the form of the case.
In this instance, the circuit court stated that insufficient evidence had been provided by the plaintiff to show that where charges were filed would have an effect on the outcome of the trial. This point would have to be made in order to argue that the artist's speech is "chilled"[1].
The appeal was made to the Supremes saying that the level of required evidence was an undue burden (there's some bullshit about how the plaintiff would be required to gather evidence about every web site on the internet and its expected standing in each of the 94 federal district courts - this claim doesn't pass the laugh test).
Without expertise and without reading the cases and circuit decisions (I just don't care that much), I couldn't say whether I considered the level of evidence requested as "undue burden."
Luckily, you don't have to ask me - the appeal was made to SCOTUS on the "undue burden" basis, and SCOTUS upheld the decision.
People like to read a whole bunch into this. You'll hear about how the court "doesn't want to open up a can of worms." It is best, however, to remember that, in the US legal system at least, the courts are supposed to practice Stare Decisis, and a corollary of such is the principle of making decisions on the smallest matter possible. The Supreme Court is not going to hear a case on reforming the application of federal law when the appeal is on "undue burden."
Even if the Supremes had agreed to hear the case, the "best outcome" would be overturning the circuit court's decision of insufficient evidence and having the circuit court re-hear the case.
I do wish reporters would stop treating decisions on a sub-point of a case as a decision on the entire case. They do it all the time. In this instance I'd suggest that the story was fed to the reporter (or guided by) the plaintiff's attorney.
IANAL, and I'd love for a lawyer to help me out with some more info here.
[1] "chilled" speech is speech that would have been permitted, but never comes into existence out of fear of prosecution. One thing that the courts try to do is provide clear "safe harbors" - areas of action that are protected by law and that non-lawyers can expect to know and understand. When congress passes laws such as the Communication Decency Act, it can demolish previously-established safe harbors, resulting in people not knowing what's legal and what's not legal and therefore not exercising their rights.
One thing to know about the principle of chilled speech: without it, you'd have to wait until someone says/draws/performs/does something which is legal but for which they are prosecuted. That would make it take a long time to resolve these issues. Two famous "chilling effects" are related to the DMCA: a chilling effect on academic research into copyright protection mechanisms (e.g., Ed Felton), and a chilling effect on fair use due to over-reaching copyright takedown notices.
The wireless operators won't tell you this - for obvious reasons - but you're absolutely NOT required to purchase your phone from them.
Here in Oklahoma, Cingular will tell you that if you have an unlocked phone it won't get cell tower updates. A friend of mine had an unlocked phone (purchased that way directly from Sony-Ericcson), and could never get signal. They said his only recourse was to get it locked. So he did. Now he has signal.
Of course, now he can't take his phone with him if he moves providers....
Most people killed by gunfire (in the U.S.) are done so in domestic disputes. It is a fact: You are more likely to get shot by someone you know than by a burglar/thief/other criminal.
You're more likely to be killed by someone you know than otherwise. Whatever the murder weapon is.
The Christian Science Monitor is one of my favorite newspapers. They're one of the very, very few newspapers that does real reporting: they don't just say what others say is going on, they say what people are saying and what the reporter's investigation and experience turns up.
Unfortunately their archive is not available online (well, for free anyways), but here is a good article from them on the different postions within Islamic culture.
The CS Monitor is the most popular newspaper inside the CIA. The only real disappointment about them is that they have so few correspondents. Often times they won't have any coverage on a hot story until a few days later. Wish I could find a copy of their coverage on the whole "Ten Commandments statue in the courthouse" issue (showed it to quite plainly be an election campaign stunt on the part of the judge - but with true believers on both sides).
The "Christian Science" part of their name reflects the fact that they are run by the Christian Scientists - who believe that it is a worship of God to discover accurate information about the world around them. Most of the reporters are not themselves Christian Scientists, and the only place management's religion really comes into play is in a moral questions section they run. It discusses moral problems in modern life, and is not very preachy.
Here's a few more articles to give you an idea of what their reporting is like.
I'm putting some effort into this post because so often, when I mention that I read the CS Monitor, people think I'm a nutjob. This might well be the case, but it's not because I read the CS Monitor. They're one of the best papers out there, and I'm sorry they don't get more readership.
50/50 is chance when the test regime was friendly and half unfriendly.
Another way to say this: each participant was asked to determine whether a given message was friendly or unfriendly, when there was a 50% chance of either state. The participants were (on the whole) unable to do this at better than a 50% rate - quarter flipping.
I remember reading about two professors at (I believe) UCLA who were working on this, and had supposedly made a deal with Bausch and Lomb. At least, that was on the measurement-of-the-eye bit and the deformable mirror array.
I was wondering what all had come of that.
Truly amazing that these things take as long as they do to get going anywhere. Is a cure for cancer languishing in some lab?
"Mr. Bush, at a White House press conference yesterday"
Look, I'm not fond of the guy. I fully support impeachment for him, in fact. I believe him to be extremely
dishonest. But you know what? It's "President Bush" NOT "Mr. Bush".
Just like it's "President Clinton."
I'm sure it was a slip, but these things are important. Just because you dislike the man, don't disparage the office.
Well, AFAIK, the HTT thing only allows for the processor to sort of split execution units (FPU, ALU, etc) so that one can work on one thread, the other on another one. If an application resorts heavily to one of those units -- and my somewhat uninformed feeling is that software like SQL probably works mostly on the ALU, it, can't possibly GAIN performance. On the other hand, I can see the effort of thrying to pigeonhole the idle threads on the wrong execution unit (will it even try that?) completely borking performance. So yeah, no surprises here.
Intel and AMD's Hyperthreading is one-at-a-time: the chip is either working as CPU 0 or it's working as CPU 1. I believe the newest Power5 is the only chip out there that can divvy up the internal units amongst the threads and work simultaneously.
And they have noticed performance improvements, though (once again) you have the cache size issue. Then again, a Power5 has an enormous CPU cache compared to an x86 processor.
Apple, for offering up their hard work for free for a great idea. Apple wants people to be able to have a good, modern system for people to work with that is easy to learn and use.
Thank you, Apple.
I also admire the laptop project for turning them down. The point of a computer is not just to "do things" - it's to learn that things can be done. It wasn't pocket calculators that changed the world, it was readily-available, general-purpose, programmable computers.
Having a tool you can study and modify in great depth is a wonderful thing. It's not just a tinker-toy set, it's a tinker-toy set and ready-made large-scale projects *in that set* for you to study and alter/improve upon.
This is the same thing that brought about "hacker boom" of the TRS 80, of the Apple ][, and, yes, even early DOS - except this is larger scale, more sophisticated, and more flexible.
The $100 laptop is not about writing school reports, it's not about web logs, and it's not about accounting software. It's "here's what you can do, here's the tools to do it, and here's how it can be done - come join us."
That is the ultimate goal of Free software, and it can not be accomplished using Mac OS X, no matter how excellent a system OS X is.
One to two minutes of commercials? Are they unskippable? If so, we'll figure out not only how much people are willing to pay to not have commercials but also how many people are willing to pay to have full seek ability in their own shows....
Given that he contracted the HIV from his "44-year-old HIV-positive partner, Juan Gomez", I'd say breeding is not that high on his list of priorities.
The fellow could be suffering "survivor's guilt" - now, in addition to how upset he is over his lover cheating on him, and how upset he is over being HIV positive, he's now going to have to watch his lover die.
I'm happy he'll live, but I don't envy him.
I do hope he eventually chooses to help others out, but he's under no obligation.
MDMA (ecstasy) and cocaine are proven to possess a dose and tolerance independent mortality.
I find this information confusing in light of the fact that MDMA was being used successfully (even by modern standards) in psychological counseling - with therapeutic dosage guidelines - and the APA was not the group that requested the banning of the drug.
If mortality is independent of dose, why would psychiatrists consider it a good therapeutic drug?
What sort of death rate are we talking here? Is it so low that thousands of patients would not have had observed reactions?
This raises further questions: how large must the study showing mortality rate have been if thousands of samples showed nothing? How could such a study have taken place on human subjects when the drug is illegal even for medical treatment now? Further, how could such a study have taken place if there was a threat that the subjects would die? Such a study would be illegal save on terminally ill patients for whom this was a suspected therapy for their condition.
On the other hand, your statement could also be taken to mean that there are factors outside of the drug itself that cause the death. For instance: people with a heart condition are very likely to die if they take cocaine. That would make sense. Is this what you meant?
Or that behavior outside of the drug itself (but exacerbated by taking the drug) was linked to death. Driving while drunk is somewhat dose independent (there's an "activating dose" but no upper limit besides alcohol poisoning) in mortality - and your odds of dying while driving drunk don't become less through experience. Is this what you meant?
I see some wisdom being spoken in this thread. It all boils down to how strong-willed the person is. Because no matter how addicted you are to anything, if you *really* wanted to quit, you would.
I think addiction issues are like dieting: willpower is key, yes, but there are other components to it. Slowly, through research, we're finding out how we can help people use their will to quit more effectively. Even if we made a pill that got rid of all cravings for cigarettes, you would still have to have the willpower to start down that path and stay down it.
But the question of drugs is more than that. It's also about the difference between a managed and an unmanaged use of drugs.
Alcohol consumption in small doses is not that harmful. Is it healthy? That's up for grabs, still[1].
Morphiate use in small doses is not that harmful (it was used as a substitute for alcohol addiction to much success - a morphine addict who wishes to control himself can hold down a job while still consuming a small amount of his drug on a regular basis, an alcoholic cannot). This was, of course, before morphiates skyrocketed in cost). Is it healthy? Well, if you're swapping managed morphiate use for unmanaged alcohol use...it's better, if not great. But it's not THAT bad for you.
An out of control user, however...well, I don't think it matters whether your drug is legal or illegal, you still have an issue.
Until we acknowledge that there is a level of use which is not addiction/abuse, we will never be having a debate about the drugs, we will always be having a debate about addiction.
[1] - studies fluctuate on either side about whether or not it's healthy
Re:Excuse me, smokers can force smokers to "escape
on
Safe Cigarettes?
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· Score: 1
That's a non-trivial question -- if you think it's obviously not appropriate for the government to get involved ask yourself how you would feel if most restaurants were "white only" because the owners felt they would lose sales (from white patrons avoiding them) if they allowed non-whites to eat there. It's not an exact parallel but it demolishes the "owner uber alles" mindset.
It is a non-trivial question, and thank you very much for acknowledging that. I far prefer to engage in debate with those who see that the issue is complex - not for complexity's sake, but because of the issue itself.
Concerning your proposed situation: there are two issues at play here. First, the odiousness of such a provision. Very, very few of us in modern times would care for "whites only." The second issue is how to change it. The first has no question of government involvement, the latter does.
"If most restaurants were 'whites only' would you support government action to outlaw such exclusions?"
I would not. I would march, I would boycott, I would cajole and reason. But I would not support government action. The reason is this: when I allow a vote on how someone else will use their private property, I have undermined all of our rights. What use is it for a black man to own his own restaurant when the local council will not permit him to serve blacks there - or, more commonly for the time - would not permit him to operate a restaurant at all. The idea is the same: other people can decide what you do with your property for the simple cause that they do not approve of your actions.
When we do this, we enter the realm of city planners deciding whether individual restaurants may serve alcohol, whether a sign is to be allowed because it is not fitting with the town's decor, and whether a smoking bar can even exist.
We need to separate the horridness of the action from the nature of the remedy. When we're dealing with private property, we need to consider that the same powers we bestow upon the Custodies we like is the same power the Custodies will have when we are not as fond of them.
I do not believe your situation demolishes the "property rights first" mentality. If you desired to do so, I would move along three lines of attack:
Property rights are limited in scope. We acknowledge that actions upon one property may cause effects in others. Building an aluminium mill causes toxic dust that will go onto neighboring property, and your right to your land does not entitle you to do that. If ownership use is subject to restrictions, how can it be supreme? Further, if property rights are so limited, is it not reasonable to argue that other limitations may be placed upon its use?
Alternately, one could argue that there are elements of ownership. While you may own your own home and the property upon which it resdes, it is very unlikely that you own the allodial title (mineral rights/oil rights), water rights, or throughway rights (there's another name for that, this is basically the right of the water company to run a pipe through your property along a narrow path). In most districts, these rights are owned by the city. As there most manifestly are elements to ownership, it is not enough to merely "own" your property - you must own the right rights on your property.
Lastly, the government has a certain right to all property: a government official (if acting in accordance with the law) may enter any property he pleases. If a police officer needs to serve a warrant or make a search of your home, and he has the authority to do so, it is not tresspass for him to come on to your property. Also, the government has a right to restrict the interactions of people in accordance with the law[1], therefore it is reasonable to restrict the way someone comports their business without being in violation of their right to do business.
But I believe all of these are peripheral to the points above: *how* not *what*.
The trouble with NSLs is that it's yet-another 3rd party issue: the party receiving the request has no incentive to fight the letter, and does not protect its interests (outside of ideological interests) in fighting it. Any wins are secret, any losses are secret, and it's not THEIR information.
Part of the reason for informing people when a search is made in their home is so that they can fight the scope and content of the search. It makes it to where the police have to have a stronger case - a more honest case - and it is in your direct interest to do so. In addition, any wins are public (they become precedent) as are any losses.
Even national security searches (secret searches) which have been legal for quite a while had a caveat - you were notified that a search was made after X days. It's important. It really is.
I see this as anotther step along a very dangerous path. So many of our laws now apply indirectly. It's not a crime for you to not give your social security number, name, date of birth, etc to a bank when you open up an account - it's a crime for the banker NOT to have that information. You can't fight the law, you can't refuse to cooperate in any meaningful fashion, nothing. The banker would have to file suit, the banker would have to allege that this is unconstitutional. That's much harder to find.
Look around you, you'll see this more and more. We don't break the law, the person being invasive is breaking the law if he does not do the government's police work for them.
Pretty tough to fight when the other side doesn't even show up.
Slashdot Mirror
While I consider the whole thing a very bad idea, there are advantages to having an RFID device, though there are no UNIQUE advantages that I can think of to having one implanted in you.
In other words there are substitutes that will do almost or exactly the same thing.
There are advantages to having an ID number that travels with you. Unique identification for banking transactions, secure facilities, hospitals, and prisons.
Prisons? Well, no one said the advantage need necessarily be for you. A "no one with this tag gets out of the building" rule. (yes, there are bad things that could occur, there are problems with this, but the question was about possible advantages).
There are advantages to being findable with a large transmitter/receiver. Hiking, etc.
Oh, let's see...what else.... Hmm. Well, some minimalists might like the idea of no longer needing to carry ID/credit card/cash/whatever. You could be sure children traveling alone on an airline were picked up by the right people. You could ensure that kidnapped children could be identified if ever taken to a hospital. You could identify more bodies (that hadn't been incinerated).
But all (or almost all) of these things could be accomplished by other methods. Nevertheless, they are advantages.
In further news, mathematicians allege The Count is cluttering up the domain of natural numbers.
"It's a travesty, I tell you! One? Two? Three? Where does it all stop? Pretty soon there'll be none left at all!"
The Count recently purchased 9111 and 4040 - "numosquatting" two popular numbers. Numosquatting is a technique of buying numbers near or around more famous numbers, so that people who mistype the intended number get the "numosquatted" number instead.
When asked for comment, The Count said "There are a lot of numbers out there. So many I cannot even count them! Me! Oh, but let me try: one! two! three! four!"
Several hours later, The Count was reached again for comment. "Anyways, the point is that there are a lot of numbers out there. These whiny people wouldn't be happy even if we went over to the Real numbers. I mean, let's say I buy 405, right? They'll say it's 'too close to 404!' - look, there's a whole lot of numbers in between! But no, that's their special number and they can't have anything even infinitely far away from it."
"Look, if they want to make it to where no one can have any number near their special number, they should buy those numbers up too - they're asking for their single-number purchase to be equal to ten, a hundred, a million of mine!" continued The Count, "A hundred million! A billion! Ten billion! One hundred billion!" At which point this reporter's cell phone died.
When asked for rebuttal, the owner of 404 stated "that just, like, your opinion, man."
Indeed, and customers have a right to choose which companies they do business with. When Yahoo! operates in China, it should comply with Chinese law, no matter how evil it is.
No.
It is morally wrong to obey a bad law. It would be wrong of me to turn in an escaping slave back in 1810. It would be wrong of me to point out unregistered jews back in 1940. It would be morally wrong of me to turn over my Japanese-descendant friends back at the same time, and it would be wrong of me to cooperate with the police of China now.
All of these things were required by the law of the time, and they were all evil.
If you wish to argue that in order to provide some benefit to the people, the company should follow the country's laws - this is the philosophy of engagement - then I would suggest this: make it so that it is exceedingly unlikely you will ever have to cooperate.
Post notice that the police may request access to your account for any reason and at any time. Not in small print, but in big letters. Make sure the users of your service are aware of the things you may be required to do which you find morally unconsciousable.
"Brother, if you are an escaping slave I shall have to turn you in - are you, as you appear to be, a freedman in fear of his safety?"
I would like to reply to your postscript as well: there are some of us who believe that the Constitution doesn't define the rights of citizens but the only powers of government - that citizen and resident alien are alike in its powers (save for deportation). In this I imagine I am as you. I believe that the great threat to the rights of resident aliens has been the nature of deportation courts - shrouded from the public eye, laughable standards of evidence, and essentially a client of the executive body.
The new threat - a far more terrifying one for most, but a less common threat - is the creation of a new concept of "enemy combatant". I confess ignorance regarding any USSC decisions making resident aliens less than citizens in rights - save for the animal of deportation and the beast of enemy combatant. If you have the time, I would appreciate a few pointers.
There are three different philosophies regarding computer control:
The trouble is that most engineering problems are approached as either 1 or 2. Part of the reason for this is that, especially in a real-time system, 3 is the most difficult to do.
Computer assistance also requires the most thinking and creativity on the part of the engineer. Consider the issue of driving: what portions of driving would best be assisted by a computer? Not where man is replaced by the machine, but assisted - offered options.
The best chess playing system known right now is an expert human assisted by a chess computer.
As far as cars go, we need to get out of the man/machine-divide concept. Maybe someday we'll be able to have fully-automated cars, but until then....
Well that, and when we TRIED to make it illegal we discovered a fun new way to give organized crime lots of money and power. Really, the US is STILL recovering from the effects of alcohol prohibition. The do-gooders *really* screwed the pooch on that one, and created far more problems than they solved. More drinking, more crime, more violence, and still all the nasty bathtub gin they could stomach.
It's good to remember that prohibition was extremely popular at the time. It wasn't a bunch of religious wackos pushing it through - the wackos were the ones who were against it!
Drinking was also on the decline, and had been for several years.
It's also important to remember that low-point beer was legal at the time. Yeah, the same watered-down piss that a few states inflict upon their consituency. So, the marginal desire for hard liquor, high-point beer, and wine - that is, the desire that wasn't satisfied by "non-intoxicating" beverages such as low-point beer - was enough to create crime syndicates, encourage wide-scale criminal activity and disrespect for the law, and get people killed through adulterated goods.
A little desire goes a long way.
Yes, drug companies are probably behind the harassment the FDA puts any non-patent drugs through. Though in this case it's probably less monetary pressure than the dislike of "unproven" drugs. They refer to the fact that naturally-ocurring herbs and such don't have to go through the same testing regime as synthetic drugs as a "loophole" to give you an idea.
The issue is that there are two systems: the political system and the market system. The desire for illegal drugs now (and high-point beer then - along with the atmosphere it created) is enough to create a thriving market. It is insufficient to change the political system.
It's the difference between "supply and demand" and "public choice".
Synthetic alcohol will probably never make a serious encounter with the public conscience (supply and demand), and will be killed politically (public choice).
Democracies fall because the public can be bribed.
Parliamentary governments fall because they either devolve into democracies, or they appoint a dictator because they can't get anything done.
Our constitutional republic is structured so that state governments have broader areas of control than the national government[1], but those walls have been broken down. Once it was discovered that, even though it's technically easier to influence state policy, pandering and political acts are more effective and visible at the national level the fight against constitutional restrictions began in true.
If we fall, it will be either because we have created a dictatorship or a democracy at the national level.
I believe the cure isn't better policies at the national level, it's the reaffirmation of the power of the states.
Unfortunately, a quick look at how many public-interest causes primarily lobby at the national level versus the state level is rather disenheartening.[2]
Though all may not be lost - as ideologues and ninnies have controlled the federal government, it has set up an antagonism with state and city governments. The recent movement (largely symbolic) by states and cities to forbid police cooperation with the USAPATRIOT act and - even more promising - with some aspects of the drug war[3], and issuing proclamations condemning national acts...well, it's heartening.
[1] - it's worth noting that corruption at the state and city level is many times worse than the wet dreams of the federal congress.
[2] - I don't have any direct numbers here - going off memory and a survey of some causes that I know. If anyone has better numbers....
[3] - Several states (California among them, I believe) have forbidden their officers from providing support to the DEA in drug raids. Some have done this for cannabis, as they have medical marijuana laws. Others have done it for financial reasons.
By bombing Iran Bush and flagging the abortion and gay marriage issues the republicans will be assured of a win in the next election.
Iran and Immigration (illegal and otherwise) seem to be the big issues being set up in the upcoming election.
They're quite effective, too. My dad is a Republican, but he's grown to dislike them very much with Bush. However, he remains a nativist - so the Republicans might just get his vote again. He'll dislike it, but it will be "too important" to do otherwise.
Remember Bush v Gore? Remember how important it was that Gore not be elected? Gosh, I even got caught up in the rhetoric. Didn't vote for Bush, but I did get caught up in it.
The load on the root servers would be intolerable. Currently they only need to store IIRC 300 TLD's. I don't know the real number but it must be les than 10000.
I speak from ignorance regarding the specifics of hosting a DNS root server, but I imagine that connection handling takes up more CPU time than the lookups. Even 10,000,000 TLD referrer entries would fit into the memory of a semi-modern server.
If you like, have a deed splitting and deed transfer fee to pay for root servers, so they're not served by good graces. Hell, have a yearly hosting charge for deed holders.
Seriously. Exclude the current TLDs, but auction off all of the rest of them. Someone out there would own .a through .aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, etc, etc, etc.
There's old auction methods for dividing up continuous goods.
There'd be no need to debate the merits of whether this or that TLD should be approved or provide a justification for their existence. The separation between .com, .net, .info, and the rest has long since gone.
Also, it would keep anyone from having a choke-hold on the DNS system like the US does now.
Auction them off, draw up deeds, make them property - resellable and divisible. Let people decide their own meanings for DNS names.
The vast majority of the time, the judicial branch is completely left out of the loop until someone is hurt by a law.
(note to parent: your post indicates that you're familiar with much of this - I try to make my posts self-sufficient so that people unfamiliar with the thread can read them. My apologies for redundancy)
Well, there's two cases to consider: 1) you have been prosecuted, 2) you fear prosecution.
1 is relatively straightforward.
In 2, you seek an injunction against prosecution. IIRC the case for an injunction against prosecution cannot rest on the particulars ("The law forbids black dogs while mine is brown with black patches"), but on the merits of the law ("the law forbidding black dogs, yet there is no reason to single out black dogs"). Either that or you can try carving out an entire section of the law ("The law cannot apply to dogs that never leave the home or yard, only dogs that appear in public").
One of the most famous cases of our time, Roe v Wade, was an injunction against prosecution. They do happen, and they can be successful.
There are many reasons why the US Supremes would reject the case - often times it's due to the form of the case.
In this instance, the circuit court stated that insufficient evidence had been provided by the plaintiff to show that where charges were filed would have an effect on the outcome of the trial. This point would have to be made in order to argue that the artist's speech is "chilled"[1].
The appeal was made to the Supremes saying that the level of required evidence was an undue burden (there's some bullshit about how the plaintiff would be required to gather evidence about every web site on the internet and its expected standing in each of the 94 federal district courts - this claim doesn't pass the laugh test).
Without expertise and without reading the cases and circuit decisions (I just don't care that much), I couldn't say whether I considered the level of evidence requested as "undue burden."
Luckily, you don't have to ask me - the appeal was made to SCOTUS on the "undue burden" basis, and SCOTUS upheld the decision.
People like to read a whole bunch into this. You'll hear about how the court "doesn't want to open up a can of worms." It is best, however, to remember that, in the US legal system at least, the courts are supposed to practice Stare Decisis, and a corollary of such is the principle of making decisions on the smallest matter possible. The Supreme Court is not going to hear a case on reforming the application of federal law when the appeal is on "undue burden."
Even if the Supremes had agreed to hear the case, the "best outcome" would be overturning the circuit court's decision of insufficient evidence and having the circuit court re-hear the case.
I do wish reporters would stop treating decisions on a sub-point of a case as a decision on the entire case. They do it all the time. In this instance I'd suggest that the story was fed to the reporter (or guided by) the plaintiff's attorney.
IANAL, and I'd love for a lawyer to help me out with some more info here.
[1] "chilled" speech is speech that would have been permitted, but never comes into existence out of fear of prosecution. One thing that the courts try to do is provide clear "safe harbors" - areas of action that are protected by law and that non-lawyers can expect to know and understand. When congress passes laws such as the Communication Decency Act, it can demolish previously-established safe harbors, resulting in people not knowing what's legal and what's not legal and therefore not exercising their rights.
One thing to know about the principle of chilled speech: without it, you'd have to wait until someone says/draws/performs/does something which is legal but for which they are prosecuted. That would make it take a long time to resolve these issues. Two famous "chilling effects" are related to the DMCA: a chilling effect on academic research into copyright protection mechanisms (e.g., Ed Felton), and a chilling effect on fair use due to over-reaching copyright takedown notices.
The wireless operators won't tell you this - for obvious reasons - but you're absolutely NOT required to purchase your phone from them.
Here in Oklahoma, Cingular will tell you that if you have an unlocked phone it won't get cell tower updates. A friend of mine had an unlocked phone (purchased that way directly from Sony-Ericcson), and could never get signal. They said his only recourse was to get it locked. So he did. Now he has signal.
Of course, now he can't take his phone with him if he moves providers....
Most people killed by gunfire (in the U.S.) are done so in domestic disputes. It is a fact: You are more likely to get shot by someone you know than by a burglar/thief/other criminal.
You're more likely to be killed by someone you know than otherwise. Whatever the murder weapon is.
The Christian Science Monitor is one of my favorite newspapers. They're one of the very, very few newspapers that does real reporting: they don't just say what others say is going on, they say what people are saying and what the reporter's investigation and experience turns up.
Unfortunately their archive is not available online (well, for free anyways), but here is a good article from them on the different postions within Islamic culture.
The CS Monitor is the most popular newspaper inside the CIA. The only real disappointment about them is that they have so few correspondents. Often times they won't have any coverage on a hot story until a few days later. Wish I could find a copy of their coverage on the whole "Ten Commandments statue in the courthouse" issue (showed it to quite plainly be an election campaign stunt on the part of the judge - but with true believers on both sides).
The "Christian Science" part of their name reflects the fact that they are run by the Christian Scientists - who believe that it is a worship of God to discover accurate information about the world around them. Most of the reporters are not themselves Christian Scientists, and the only place management's religion really comes into play is in a moral questions section they run. It discusses moral problems in modern life, and is not very preachy.
Here's a few more articles to give you an idea of what their reporting is like.
I'm putting some effort into this post because so often, when I mention that I read the CS Monitor, people think I'm a nutjob. This might well be the case, but it's not because I read the CS Monitor. They're one of the best papers out there, and I'm sorry they don't get more readership.
50/50 is chance when the test regime was friendly and half unfriendly.
Another way to say this: each participant was asked to determine whether a given message was friendly or unfriendly, when there was a 50% chance of either state. The participants were (on the whole) unable to do this at better than a 50% rate - quarter flipping.
I remember reading about two professors at (I believe) UCLA who were working on this, and had supposedly made a deal with Bausch and Lomb. At least, that was on the measurement-of-the-eye bit and the deformable mirror array.
I was wondering what all had come of that.
Truly amazing that these things take as long as they do to get going anywhere. Is a cure for cancer languishing in some lab?
"Mr. Bush, at a White House press conference yesterday"
Look, I'm not fond of the guy. I fully support impeachment for him, in fact. I believe him to be extremely dishonest. But you know what? It's "President Bush" NOT "Mr. Bush".
Just like it's "President Clinton."
I'm sure it was a slip, but these things are important. Just because you dislike the man, don't disparage the office.
Seriously, one of the best posts on Slashdot in recent memory. Well-contained, to the point, and well thought-out.
Thank you for raising the bar.
Well, AFAIK, the HTT thing only allows for the processor to sort of split execution units (FPU, ALU, etc) so that one can work on one thread, the other on another one. If an application resorts heavily to one of those units -- and my somewhat uninformed feeling is that software like SQL probably works mostly on the ALU, it, can't possibly GAIN performance. On the other hand, I can see the effort of thrying to pigeonhole the idle threads on the wrong execution unit (will it even try that?) completely borking performance. So yeah, no surprises here.
Intel and AMD's Hyperthreading is one-at-a-time: the chip is either working as CPU 0 or it's working as CPU 1. I believe the newest Power5 is the only chip out there that can divvy up the internal units amongst the threads and work simultaneously.
And they have noticed performance improvements, though (once again) you have the cache size issue. Then again, a Power5 has an enormous CPU cache compared to an x86 processor.
Apple, for offering up their hard work for free for a great idea. Apple wants people to be able to have a good, modern system for people to work with that is easy to learn and use.
Thank you, Apple.
I also admire the laptop project for turning them down. The point of a computer is not just to "do things" - it's to learn that things can be done. It wasn't pocket calculators that changed the world, it was readily-available, general-purpose, programmable computers.
Having a tool you can study and modify in great depth is a wonderful thing. It's not just a tinker-toy set, it's a tinker-toy set and ready-made large-scale projects *in that set* for you to study and alter/improve upon.
This is the same thing that brought about "hacker boom" of the TRS 80, of the Apple ][, and, yes, even early DOS - except this is larger scale, more sophisticated, and more flexible.
The $100 laptop is not about writing school reports, it's not about web logs, and it's not about accounting software. It's "here's what you can do, here's the tools to do it, and here's how it can be done - come join us."
That is the ultimate goal of Free software, and it can not be accomplished using Mac OS X, no matter how excellent a system OS X is.
One to two minutes of commercials? Are they unskippable? If so, we'll figure out not only how much people are willing to pay to not have commercials but also how many people are willing to pay to have full seek ability in their own shows....
Given that he contracted the HIV from his "44-year-old HIV-positive partner, Juan Gomez", I'd say breeding is not that high on his list of priorities.
The fellow could be suffering "survivor's guilt" - now, in addition to how upset he is over his lover cheating on him, and how upset he is over being HIV positive, he's now going to have to watch his lover die.
I'm happy he'll live, but I don't envy him.
I do hope he eventually chooses to help others out, but he's under no obligation.
MDMA (ecstasy) and cocaine are proven to possess a dose and tolerance independent mortality.
I find this information confusing in light of the fact that MDMA was being used successfully (even by modern standards) in psychological counseling - with therapeutic dosage guidelines - and the APA was not the group that requested the banning of the drug.
If mortality is independent of dose, why would psychiatrists consider it a good therapeutic drug?
What sort of death rate are we talking here? Is it so low that thousands of patients would not have had observed reactions?
This raises further questions: how large must the study showing mortality rate have been if thousands of samples showed nothing? How could such a study have taken place on human subjects when the drug is illegal even for medical treatment now? Further, how could such a study have taken place if there was a threat that the subjects would die? Such a study would be illegal save on terminally ill patients for whom this was a suspected therapy for their condition.
On the other hand, your statement could also be taken to mean that there are factors outside of the drug itself that cause the death. For instance: people with a heart condition are very likely to die if they take cocaine. That would make sense. Is this what you meant?
Or that behavior outside of the drug itself (but exacerbated by taking the drug) was linked to death. Driving while drunk is somewhat dose independent (there's an "activating dose" but no upper limit besides alcohol poisoning) in mortality - and your odds of dying while driving drunk don't become less through experience. Is this what you meant?
I see some wisdom being spoken in this thread. It all boils down to how strong-willed the person is. Because no matter how addicted you are to anything, if you *really* wanted to quit, you would.
I think addiction issues are like dieting: willpower is key, yes, but there are other components to it. Slowly, through research, we're finding out how we can help people use their will to quit more effectively. Even if we made a pill that got rid of all cravings for cigarettes, you would still have to have the willpower to start down that path and stay down it.
But the question of drugs is more than that. It's also about the difference between a managed and an unmanaged use of drugs.
Alcohol consumption in small doses is not that harmful. Is it healthy? That's up for grabs, still[1].
Morphiate use in small doses is not that harmful (it was used as a substitute for alcohol addiction to much success - a morphine addict who wishes to control himself can hold down a job while still consuming a small amount of his drug on a regular basis, an alcoholic cannot). This was, of course, before morphiates skyrocketed in cost). Is it healthy? Well, if you're swapping managed morphiate use for unmanaged alcohol use...it's better, if not great. But it's not THAT bad for you.
An out of control user, however...well, I don't think it matters whether your drug is legal or illegal, you still have an issue.
Until we acknowledge that there is a level of use which is not addiction/abuse, we will never be having a debate about the drugs, we will always be having a debate about addiction.
[1] - studies fluctuate on either side about whether or not it's healthy
That's a non-trivial question -- if you think it's obviously not appropriate for the government to get involved ask yourself how you would feel if most restaurants were "white only" because the owners felt they would lose sales (from white patrons avoiding them) if they allowed non-whites to eat there. It's not an exact parallel but it demolishes the "owner uber alles" mindset.
It is a non-trivial question, and thank you very much for acknowledging that. I far prefer to engage in debate with those who see that the issue is complex - not for complexity's sake, but because of the issue itself.
Concerning your proposed situation: there are two issues at play here. First, the odiousness of such a provision. Very, very few of us in modern times would care for "whites only." The second issue is how to change it. The first has no question of government involvement, the latter does.
"If most restaurants were 'whites only' would you support government action to outlaw such exclusions?"
I would not. I would march, I would boycott, I would cajole and reason. But I would not support government action. The reason is this: when I allow a vote on how someone else will use their private property, I have undermined all of our rights. What use is it for a black man to own his own restaurant when the local council will not permit him to serve blacks there - or, more commonly for the time - would not permit him to operate a restaurant at all. The idea is the same: other people can decide what you do with your property for the simple cause that they do not approve of your actions.
When we do this, we enter the realm of city planners deciding whether individual restaurants may serve alcohol, whether a sign is to be allowed because it is not fitting with the town's decor, and whether a smoking bar can even exist.
We need to separate the horridness of the action from the nature of the remedy. When we're dealing with private property, we need to consider that the same powers we bestow upon the Custodies we like is the same power the Custodies will have when we are not as fond of them.
I do not believe your situation demolishes the "property rights first" mentality. If you desired to do so, I would move along three lines of attack:
Property rights are limited in scope. We acknowledge that actions upon one property may cause effects in others. Building an aluminium mill causes toxic dust that will go onto neighboring property, and your right to your land does not entitle you to do that. If ownership use is subject to restrictions, how can it be supreme? Further, if property rights are so limited, is it not reasonable to argue that other limitations may be placed upon its use?
Alternately, one could argue that there are elements of ownership. While you may own your own home and the property upon which it resdes, it is very unlikely that you own the allodial title (mineral rights/oil rights), water rights, or throughway rights (there's another name for that, this is basically the right of the water company to run a pipe through your property along a narrow path). In most districts, these rights are owned by the city. As there most manifestly are elements to ownership, it is not enough to merely "own" your property - you must own the right rights on your property.
Lastly, the government has a certain right to all property: a government official (if acting in accordance with the law) may enter any property he pleases. If a police officer needs to serve a warrant or make a search of your home, and he has the authority to do so, it is not tresspass for him to come on to your property. Also, the government has a right to restrict the interactions of people in accordance with the law[1], therefore it is reasonable to restrict the way someone comports their business without being in violation of their right to do business.
But I believe all of these are peripheral to the points above: *how* not *what*.
Thank you again for your insightful comments.
The trouble with NSLs is that it's yet-another 3rd party issue: the party receiving the request has no incentive to fight the letter, and does not protect its interests (outside of ideological interests) in fighting it. Any wins are secret, any losses are secret, and it's not THEIR information.
Part of the reason for informing people when a search is made in their home is so that they can fight the scope and content of the search. It makes it to where the police have to have a stronger case - a more honest case - and it is in your direct interest to do so. In addition, any wins are public (they become precedent) as are any losses.
Even national security searches (secret searches) which have been legal for quite a while had a caveat - you were notified that a search was made after X days. It's important. It really is.
I see this as anotther step along a very dangerous path. So many of our laws now apply indirectly. It's not a crime for you to not give your social security number, name, date of birth, etc to a bank when you open up an account - it's a crime for the banker NOT to have that information. You can't fight the law, you can't refuse to cooperate in any meaningful fashion, nothing. The banker would have to file suit, the banker would have to allege that this is unconstitutional. That's much harder to find.
Look around you, you'll see this more and more. We don't break the law, the person being invasive is breaking the law if he does not do the government's police work for them.
Pretty tough to fight when the other side doesn't even show up.