I don't know that science can decide matters of ethics. We may use our ethical standards to decide what knowledge we want to learn, though. If science discovered a process to clone a human being, the process would not be in question whether it could be done. Our ethical standards would tell us whether it is something we wanted to do or not. If you want a good rule, science discovers what we can be done. Ethics define whether we should do them or not.
The problem with using 'when a baby develops a substantial part of its central nervous system' is that it completes the major structural development well before the 20 week mark (around week 8-9, actually). It will continue developing from there til the end of the pregnancy and beyond. Unfortunately for your definition, week 8-9 is still within what is generally acceptable for abortions. That 20 week mark is important because it is just about the earliest possible date that a fetus can survive outside the womb (with major support from a NICU). That ability to survive isn't defined by how well developed the central nervous system is, but rather how well formed the lungs and other internal organs are.
Remember that "pro-choice" means pro-choice for the woman, whereas pro-life means pro-choice for the human which will develop if the embryo not destroyed. There's nothing inherently correct about believing that a woman must or must not look after a fertilised embyro inside her, just as there's nothing inherently correct or incorrect about believing parents must look after their 8 year old kid.
The problem with the above logic is this.. even in this day and age, life from conception to birth is still has a really high morbidity rate. That is, women miscarry all the time for reasons that have nothing to do with abortion, and often times aren't even recorded. Sometimes the body determines that the embryo is not viable. Sometimes the embryo has a flaw which kills it early in the process. Sometimes it's late in the process. Sometimes random chance puts a perfectly viable embryo into a situation where it just grabbed onto the wrong spot (ectopic pregnancies), putting itself and the mother at risk. Post-birth, the morbidity rate drops significantly as the child's physiology isn't so dependent on a delicate balance between mother and child.
This is a problem that has no good solution. That there is a ton of controversy around it only reflects that fact. I'm pretty sure that even most pro-choice folks would carry the opinion that abortions should not be a replacement for responsible behavior, and that we'd all like to see them performed as little as possible. Mandating that they cannot be done for any reason whatsoever places those prospective mothers into servitude at the whim of a potential child which may not even make it to term, which may kill the mother, or which may inflict years of torment on an unfortunate victim of rape. The idea of banning abortions completely, or the current tactic of defining a fertilized egg as a legal person, is a problem for women because this natural process is about as high risk a venture as is ever carried out. Flexibility is a must when there is this much risk involved, if you value human life at all.
For my mind, though, I just can't stand the hypocrisy of (generally) the same folks crying for less government interference in their lives, while going on how you should live by their morals (injecting government into someone else's life). Can't have it both ways.
Donkeys (Equus africanus asinus) and Horses (Equus ferus caballus) are generally able to crossbreed, but they cannot breed true. That is, if you mix an American Paint pony and a Donkey together, they can produce offspring. However, the offspring cannot reproduce. Now you used the term 'to produce the same offspring'. What is considered the same? Thoroughbred and American Paint? Palomino and Lipizzaner? Clydesdale and Spanish Mustang? Some are big and some are small, but all considered to be in the same species. Is their offspring the same as if you paired them differently?
That's the kind of fuzziness I think the Parent is trying to get at. If you saw two purebred Clydesdale horses and they produced another Clydesdale, it would be obvious by your definition that they're the same species. If you paired different horse breeds, the offspring would not be 'the same' as it would contain characteristics of both parents, but not look exactly like either.
Re:Part of a money conflict within the King family
on
A Copyright Nightmare
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· Score: 1
This only furthers the notion I have regarding the wisdom of allowing copyright of a work to persist beyond the death of the original author. While I understand the logistical nightmare it would cause if it ended there (omg, you're trying to kill authors!), the return of works to the public domain could be a conditional state. Copyright is retained for X years or author's natural death, whichever is longer, even though I feel even that might be too long. In the case of unnatural death, it would be retained for that period of time or an estimated date based on the average lifespan for that generation.
I mean, if copyright is TRULY to be incentive for creating more works, exactly how do you give incentive for a dead person to create more for us? Allowing copyright to persist for the estate, beyond a reasonable period in cases of a quick demise after a work's creation, does nothing to further the creation of creative works. This is especially true if the estate or children are not creatively-inclined.
Most cellular phones and other wireless devices contain some equivalent form of a 'hardware ID'. MAC address, ESN, SID or MIN all help identify wireless devices to their respective networks. These numbers don't usually change each time you go into an area, and as such can be used to remember you from a previous encounter. Aside from missing one link (a given owner of a particular 'hardware ID'), I don't see how they're particularly anonymous. Since it's often not necessary to know your name, helpful though it might be, they can always send you targeted information based on past tracking.
The problem with doing away with patents all together is the idea of lost knowledge. Patents allow inventors to come up with some novel new way to do something (supposedly) and tell the world about it. In exchange for that, they're guaranteed to be able to use that innovation as they see fit for the duration of the patent. In the absence of patents, what companies would likely revert to is trade secrets, keeping as much of their product away from public knowledge as possible. Many an idea has been lost because it was considered a 'trade secret' and never shared.
I'm no great fan of patents as they stand and feel they should be greatly narrowed in scope, but I am cautious in abolishing them all together. I would rather see the public ultimately gain so ever more innovative products can be made, rather than people always having to reinvent the wheel over and over.
Does that mean you don't have any right to life since someone can casually take it away from you at any time? What rights do you suppose exist then, since even the most basic of things can be taken away from you?
Rights aren't something that can't be taken away from you. Rights are things that we consider what Should Be. They're a construct for us, to establish a framework upon which we can live our lives with expectations that don't involve looking over our shoulder like animals every day.
If I put the game down for a weekend or a week or two due to Real Life, and then come back and there's no way to get back into the character and remember what was going on in the story, then I'm done with the game.
This actually brings up an interesting thought for me. I wonder how well it would go over that, if you saved and walked away from a game, when you came back, it gave you one of those TV-esque 'Previously, on [game]...' intros (skip-able, of course). That might be a way to do a quick refresh of what was going on when you saved, perhaps what quests you were on or the point in the main story where you were at. So far I haven't seen any of that in games, and I know it would have helped me in quite a few instances to get back into the groove.
Whether the cop directly killed the victim is irrelevant. The police officer caused the situation that ultimately killed him, and for that he is responsible for the victim's death. This is defined in law. Perhaps you should brush up more on the kinds of laws there are involving the death of individuals in our society.
Personally, I'm curious how you figure on this part...
One more thing: About 98% of all Economists agree that free markets are the best way to allocate goods and services. When the government interferes with free markets by re-distributing money or injecting money into specific markets, there is an "overhead" of lost efficiency that also reduces the capacity of the economy to produce goods and services.
The government, as was said, is just like any other economic entity. In order for it to obtain money, it must acquire it from somewhere. This is done often in the form of taxes (and if you want to think of it this way, those are the wages it extracts from the people it is doing work for through the creation of laws and providing of other services). We, in the most proverbial of meanings, have deemed it that the government shall provide certain things. A military, for one. Through the years, we have asked for more things, and sometimes we have had things 'bought' for us on our behalf; Medicare, Social Security, and other government assistance programs.
The money the government takes in is spent, typically. Sometimes, it is spent offshore in the form of aid to other countries. Sometimes, it is spent domestically, in the form of projects; roads, schools, and other things. Right now, I would even say the government is spending 100% of what it gets in (more than that, actually), so the money is being put back into the system. Hell, it's even paid back in wages to those people who actually work on those projects.
All that said, I'm at a loss for what is considered 'overhead due to lost efficiency'. Are you saying that the government pays too much for the resources it buys? Are you saying that not all of the money the government obtains is spent back into the system? What overhead is it that you are losing, and where does it go?
One thing that strikes me funny, too, is the idea that a truly free market is ultimately the most efficient. It isn't. Without any regulations, certain markets (see: utilities or other high cost-to-enter markets) will ultimately condense down into a monopoly in enough time. Monopolists in the economy tend to have very few reasons for improving efficiency. You are their captive customer, what exactly can you do in the free market role if you cannot make the choice to switch to another provider? You have no leverage over those companies in order to make them improve, and they have no pressure from competitors (since there are none) in order to become more efficient. So, at that point, it becomes a process of extracting as much profit (often by raising prices to increase the profit margins) from the customer base as they think they can get away with. And, on the off chance that such a scenario is totally 'unbelievable', I provide for you one of the more famous examples, American Telephone & Telegraph. While that company did not operate in a purely free market environment, if you feel that it would have operated in a more balanced way had there not been regulations and government oversight from time to time, I've got a TON of Oceanside property to sell you in Florida. Cheap!:)
You know what happens when a technician helps out another technician by a 5 second test using that tool? They generally gain the business of that technician, and the recommendations to their peers and layfolk. Good will is, by itself, good advertising and quite often free. While the person stepping into the store might be able to fix up the computers of everyone, they may not have the time, and when deferring someone to another repair source, who would you recommend? This store that just tried to screw you out of $100 for what amounts to doing absolutely no work, or some other shop that treats customers with respect?
The 'I'm a big box store and we don't need your business' is so damn stupid for a business out to make money. Be flexible. If someone knows what they need, help them out and don't try to scam them on services. If someone doesn't know what they need, help them out with enhanced services and diagnostics they may not be aware may improve the performance of their PC. You can have a win-win situation simply by not being a dick to a potential customer.
I wish I had mod points today, because this right here is exactly what the answer is. We drive cars, we're told that even if there is someone driving outside the bounds of the law (recklessly, speeding, etc), we should drive defensively and take care of ourselves. The same can go for airplane design. So today it's Cell Phones and iPads. We get 100% cooperation and that's no longer a problem, and we can leave sensitive avionics unshielded. Then, a solar storm pushes enough EM interference into the atmosphere and.. whoops, planes are falling out of the sky because their avionics got crippled with the noise.
The lesson learned here shouldn't be 'People need to obey the rules and turn off their radiating devices' but rather 'Planes are vulnerable to interference and should be hardened better'.
A session key can be easily invalidated, either via automation timeout or the user simply clicking 'Logout'. A session key might also be keyed to a particular IP Address, invalidating anyone else's attempt to use it. A password intercept gives access at all times.
I'm sure there is other security that a session ID provides that I can't think of, since I'm not a webmaster by trade.
At least HP systems these days detect significant acceleration and immediately park the heads of the drive to prevent the possibility of damage. Now, that's not to say it's a great idea to move it while powered, but there are some safety checks in place to prevent damage to the best of their ability. Bothersome, too, when you're shutting down the laptop and pop it from its dock, only to have to wait 30 seconds for the system to unpark the heads and complete the shutdown after you whisked it away to pack it in your bag.
Granted, I don't think they could pull it off, or it might be tied to your account and not your console, but Sony has tried to implement some rather 'out there' solutions for their problems.
The biggest difference between alcohol and tobacco is that if you drink enough to get drunk, that doesn't mean that I will be drunk too if I'm next to you. With tobacco, if you smoke enough to give yourself cancer, then you've created enough second hand smoke (the kind that does NOT pass through the filter) for me to breathe and give me cancer too. Alcohol carries with it other problems, and yes, those that are drunk can inflict themselves on others in ways that are annoying or dangerous. There just isn't that health factor involved outside of dangerous activities, eg driving.
Tobacco is getting the shaft because, in certain situations such as work, the answer of 'just walk away if you don't like it' cannot be done.
Personally, I'd be concerned with what happens when all the permafrost and polar ice/glaciers melt. Have you seen the temperature graph of a glass of melting ice water? While everything is frozen, the temp rises with the energy input. When you hit the melting point, the temperature rises very little for the energy input, as all that energy is going into phase changing ice into water. Once that ice is all melted, though, the temperature rise returns to mirror that of the pre-melting glass, quickly matching the energy input.
So.. we have lots of ice, less as years go by. We have slowly rising temps per year on average. What happens after we lose all that ice? 2-3 degree rises per year? Sounds a bit more disturbing that way.
Net neutrality has nothing to do with bandwidth caps. It is more akin to Verizon not being able to go to Google and charge them a fee in order for you to go to Google's site at a reasonable speed. The content of the internet, no matter the source, should be received by the end user at the same speed. This is not to say that they can't tier speeds for different categories of data (http vs sip vs streaming video), but they can't extort money out of a provider over another for preferential treatment to get to the 'captive audience', aka the ISP's customers.
Is that like the city of Chicago, that relatively recently had their law made 'unenforceable' based on the Second Amendment? Based on the Supreme Court's ruling, it would seem to be only a matter of time before such bans would need to be removed in favor of "justifiable restrictions". Trust the NRA or some other entity to sue those places with bans to get that going.
If the list was so important, why wasn't it flagged Top Secret or something equally secure, instead of just 'Do not distribute on the internet'? When some 2-3 million people have access to a document, it is not secret by any stretch of the imagination.
That would mean that the carriers are looking out for their customers, instead of their shareholders. That just doesn't happen on a routine basis. For most companies, anytime they do something 'for the customer', what that really means is that it will make them more money and therefor be 'for the shareholders'.
How does stopping a customer from racking up a $1000 phone bill benefit the shareholders? If you can convince them it does, then you can probably get the company to act on that. Til then, buyer beware.
I know my concern while traveling with my child is two-fold. Unnecessary radiation exposure, and lack of comprehension.
My daughter has already had several pelvic X-rays for potential problems with the development of her hips. At that time, there was justified concern, although fortunately it turned out not to be an issue as things developed. However, irradiating my child during critical development periods just to prove that she isn't carrying a bomb to someone else is not a justified use of radiation in my view. Ionizing radiation doesn't just go away, and high volume or low volume, x-rays still carry enough energy to cause damage. Risk is higher than the reward of verifying she's not a terrorist.
My daughter also will not fully understand what is going on. She's young, and gets quite a lot, but when some TSA agent starts to feel her up to assert she's not carrying a gun, is she going to understand what's going on? Things children don't understand can be traumatic for them if they become frightened. Is one instance going to matter? No, perhaps, but if she's spooked for the next few hours, guess who gets to deal with her? All the airline passengers on the flight with me. Add to that, round trips require 2 such runs through security and we're seeing that this is definitely not easy on the children. You then get to ask, 'is it worth it?'
I'm all about safety when safety is the actual focus. These machines are like a technophile bouncing at the latest new gadget. They might be neat in technology, but lack something in implementation.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, every group has its fringe elements. The group as a whole should not be judged based on them, but rather what the majority opinion is.
I don't know that science can decide matters of ethics. We may use our ethical standards to decide what knowledge we want to learn, though. If science discovered a process to clone a human being, the process would not be in question whether it could be done. Our ethical standards would tell us whether it is something we wanted to do or not. If you want a good rule, science discovers what we can be done. Ethics define whether we should do them or not.
The problem with using 'when a baby develops a substantial part of its central nervous system' is that it completes the major structural development well before the 20 week mark (around week 8-9, actually). It will continue developing from there til the end of the pregnancy and beyond. Unfortunately for your definition, week 8-9 is still within what is generally acceptable for abortions. That 20 week mark is important because it is just about the earliest possible date that a fetus can survive outside the womb (with major support from a NICU). That ability to survive isn't defined by how well developed the central nervous system is, but rather how well formed the lungs and other internal organs are.
Remember that "pro-choice" means pro-choice for the woman, whereas pro-life means pro-choice for the human which will develop if the embryo not destroyed. There's nothing inherently correct about believing that a woman must or must not look after a fertilised embyro inside her, just as there's nothing inherently correct or incorrect about believing parents must look after their 8 year old kid.
The problem with the above logic is this.. even in this day and age, life from conception to birth is still has a really high morbidity rate. That is, women miscarry all the time for reasons that have nothing to do with abortion, and often times aren't even recorded. Sometimes the body determines that the embryo is not viable. Sometimes the embryo has a flaw which kills it early in the process. Sometimes it's late in the process. Sometimes random chance puts a perfectly viable embryo into a situation where it just grabbed onto the wrong spot (ectopic pregnancies), putting itself and the mother at risk. Post-birth, the morbidity rate drops significantly as the child's physiology isn't so dependent on a delicate balance between mother and child.
This is a problem that has no good solution. That there is a ton of controversy around it only reflects that fact. I'm pretty sure that even most pro-choice folks would carry the opinion that abortions should not be a replacement for responsible behavior, and that we'd all like to see them performed as little as possible. Mandating that they cannot be done for any reason whatsoever places those prospective mothers into servitude at the whim of a potential child which may not even make it to term, which may kill the mother, or which may inflict years of torment on an unfortunate victim of rape. The idea of banning abortions completely, or the current tactic of defining a fertilized egg as a legal person, is a problem for women because this natural process is about as high risk a venture as is ever carried out. Flexibility is a must when there is this much risk involved, if you value human life at all.
For my mind, though, I just can't stand the hypocrisy of (generally) the same folks crying for less government interference in their lives, while going on how you should live by their morals (injecting government into someone else's life). Can't have it both ways.
Explain Mules then: http://www.lovelongears.com/about_mules.html
Donkeys (Equus africanus asinus) and Horses (Equus ferus caballus) are generally able to crossbreed, but they cannot breed true. That is, if you mix an American Paint pony and a Donkey together, they can produce offspring. However, the offspring cannot reproduce. Now you used the term 'to produce the same offspring'. What is considered the same? Thoroughbred and American Paint? Palomino and Lipizzaner? Clydesdale and Spanish Mustang? Some are big and some are small, but all considered to be in the same species. Is their offspring the same as if you paired them differently?
That's the kind of fuzziness I think the Parent is trying to get at. If you saw two purebred Clydesdale horses and they produced another Clydesdale, it would be obvious by your definition that they're the same species. If you paired different horse breeds, the offspring would not be 'the same' as it would contain characteristics of both parents, but not look exactly like either.
This only furthers the notion I have regarding the wisdom of allowing copyright of a work to persist beyond the death of the original author. While I understand the logistical nightmare it would cause if it ended there (omg, you're trying to kill authors!), the return of works to the public domain could be a conditional state. Copyright is retained for X years or author's natural death, whichever is longer, even though I feel even that might be too long. In the case of unnatural death, it would be retained for that period of time or an estimated date based on the average lifespan for that generation.
I mean, if copyright is TRULY to be incentive for creating more works, exactly how do you give incentive for a dead person to create more for us? Allowing copyright to persist for the estate, beyond a reasonable period in cases of a quick demise after a work's creation, does nothing to further the creation of creative works. This is especially true if the estate or children are not creatively-inclined.
Most cellular phones and other wireless devices contain some equivalent form of a 'hardware ID'. MAC address, ESN, SID or MIN all help identify wireless devices to their respective networks. These numbers don't usually change each time you go into an area, and as such can be used to remember you from a previous encounter. Aside from missing one link (a given owner of a particular 'hardware ID'), I don't see how they're particularly anonymous. Since it's often not necessary to know your name, helpful though it might be, they can always send you targeted information based on past tracking.
The problem with doing away with patents all together is the idea of lost knowledge. Patents allow inventors to come up with some novel new way to do something (supposedly) and tell the world about it. In exchange for that, they're guaranteed to be able to use that innovation as they see fit for the duration of the patent. In the absence of patents, what companies would likely revert to is trade secrets, keeping as much of their product away from public knowledge as possible. Many an idea has been lost because it was considered a 'trade secret' and never shared.
I'm no great fan of patents as they stand and feel they should be greatly narrowed in scope, but I am cautious in abolishing them all together. I would rather see the public ultimately gain so ever more innovative products can be made, rather than people always having to reinvent the wheel over and over.
How did that Wild West society work out? There were a lot of guns out there, too, weren't there?
Consider, too, that if the ACA is struck down, do you honestly think the insurance premiums are going to come down at all? Have they come down ever?
Does that mean you don't have any right to life since someone can casually take it away from you at any time? What rights do you suppose exist then, since even the most basic of things can be taken away from you?
Rights aren't something that can't be taken away from you. Rights are things that we consider what Should Be. They're a construct for us, to establish a framework upon which we can live our lives with expectations that don't involve looking over our shoulder like animals every day.
If I put the game down for a weekend or a week or two due to Real Life, and then come back and there's no way to get back into the character and remember what was going on in the story, then I'm done with the game.
This actually brings up an interesting thought for me. I wonder how well it would go over that, if you saved and walked away from a game, when you came back, it gave you one of those TV-esque 'Previously, on [game]...' intros (skip-able, of course). That might be a way to do a quick refresh of what was going on when you saved, perhaps what quests you were on or the point in the main story where you were at. So far I haven't seen any of that in games, and I know it would have helped me in quite a few instances to get back into the groove.
Whether the cop directly killed the victim is irrelevant. The police officer caused the situation that ultimately killed him, and for that he is responsible for the victim's death. This is defined in law. Perhaps you should brush up more on the kinds of laws there are involving the death of individuals in our society.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manslaughter#Criminally_negligent_manslaughter
Personally, I'm curious how you figure on this part...
One more thing: About 98% of all Economists agree that free markets are the best way to allocate goods and services. When the government interferes with free markets by re-distributing money or injecting money into specific markets, there is an "overhead" of lost efficiency that also reduces the capacity of the economy to produce goods and services.
The government, as was said, is just like any other economic entity. In order for it to obtain money, it must acquire it from somewhere. This is done often in the form of taxes (and if you want to think of it this way, those are the wages it extracts from the people it is doing work for through the creation of laws and providing of other services). We, in the most proverbial of meanings, have deemed it that the government shall provide certain things. A military, for one. Through the years, we have asked for more things, and sometimes we have had things 'bought' for us on our behalf; Medicare, Social Security, and other government assistance programs.
The money the government takes in is spent, typically. Sometimes, it is spent offshore in the form of aid to other countries. Sometimes, it is spent domestically, in the form of projects; roads, schools, and other things. Right now, I would even say the government is spending 100% of what it gets in (more than that, actually), so the money is being put back into the system. Hell, it's even paid back in wages to those people who actually work on those projects.
All that said, I'm at a loss for what is considered 'overhead due to lost efficiency'. Are you saying that the government pays too much for the resources it buys? Are you saying that not all of the money the government obtains is spent back into the system? What overhead is it that you are losing, and where does it go?
One thing that strikes me funny, too, is the idea that a truly free market is ultimately the most efficient. It isn't. Without any regulations, certain markets (see: utilities or other high cost-to-enter markets) will ultimately condense down into a monopoly in enough time. Monopolists in the economy tend to have very few reasons for improving efficiency. You are their captive customer, what exactly can you do in the free market role if you cannot make the choice to switch to another provider? You have no leverage over those companies in order to make them improve, and they have no pressure from competitors (since there are none) in order to become more efficient. So, at that point, it becomes a process of extracting as much profit (often by raising prices to increase the profit margins) from the customer base as they think they can get away with. And, on the off chance that such a scenario is totally 'unbelievable', I provide for you one of the more famous examples, American Telephone & Telegraph. While that company did not operate in a purely free market environment, if you feel that it would have operated in a more balanced way had there not been regulations and government oversight from time to time, I've got a TON of Oceanside property to sell you in Florida. Cheap! :)
You know what happens when a technician helps out another technician by a 5 second test using that tool? They generally gain the business of that technician, and the recommendations to their peers and layfolk. Good will is, by itself, good advertising and quite often free. While the person stepping into the store might be able to fix up the computers of everyone, they may not have the time, and when deferring someone to another repair source, who would you recommend? This store that just tried to screw you out of $100 for what amounts to doing absolutely no work, or some other shop that treats customers with respect?
The 'I'm a big box store and we don't need your business' is so damn stupid for a business out to make money. Be flexible. If someone knows what they need, help them out and don't try to scam them on services. If someone doesn't know what they need, help them out with enhanced services and diagnostics they may not be aware may improve the performance of their PC. You can have a win-win situation simply by not being a dick to a potential customer.
I wish I had mod points today, because this right here is exactly what the answer is. We drive cars, we're told that even if there is someone driving outside the bounds of the law (recklessly, speeding, etc), we should drive defensively and take care of ourselves. The same can go for airplane design. So today it's Cell Phones and iPads. We get 100% cooperation and that's no longer a problem, and we can leave sensitive avionics unshielded. Then, a solar storm pushes enough EM interference into the atmosphere and.. whoops, planes are falling out of the sky because their avionics got crippled with the noise.
The lesson learned here shouldn't be 'People need to obey the rules and turn off their radiating devices' but rather 'Planes are vulnerable to interference and should be hardened better'.
A session key can be easily invalidated, either via automation timeout or the user simply clicking 'Logout'. A session key might also be keyed to a particular IP Address, invalidating anyone else's attempt to use it. A password intercept gives access at all times.
I'm sure there is other security that a session ID provides that I can't think of, since I'm not a webmaster by trade.
At least HP systems these days detect significant acceleration and immediately park the heads of the drive to prevent the possibility of damage. Now, that's not to say it's a great idea to move it while powered, but there are some safety checks in place to prevent damage to the best of their ability. Bothersome, too, when you're shutting down the laptop and pop it from its dock, only to have to wait 30 seconds for the system to unpark the heads and complete the shutdown after you whisked it away to pack it in your bag.
If only there weren't possible talks about perhaps not even being able to take your copy of a game to your friend's house to play... http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/01/21/1655259/Sony-Planning-Serial-Keys-For-PS3-Games
Granted, I don't think they could pull it off, or it might be tied to your account and not your console, but Sony has tried to implement some rather 'out there' solutions for their problems.
The biggest difference between alcohol and tobacco is that if you drink enough to get drunk, that doesn't mean that I will be drunk too if I'm next to you. With tobacco, if you smoke enough to give yourself cancer, then you've created enough second hand smoke (the kind that does NOT pass through the filter) for me to breathe and give me cancer too. Alcohol carries with it other problems, and yes, those that are drunk can inflict themselves on others in ways that are annoying or dangerous. There just isn't that health factor involved outside of dangerous activities, eg driving.
Tobacco is getting the shaft because, in certain situations such as work, the answer of 'just walk away if you don't like it' cannot be done.
Personally, I'd be concerned with what happens when all the permafrost and polar ice/glaciers melt. Have you seen the temperature graph of a glass of melting ice water? While everything is frozen, the temp rises with the energy input. When you hit the melting point, the temperature rises very little for the energy input, as all that energy is going into phase changing ice into water. Once that ice is all melted, though, the temperature rise returns to mirror that of the pre-melting glass, quickly matching the energy input.
So.. we have lots of ice, less as years go by. We have slowly rising temps per year on average. What happens after we lose all that ice? 2-3 degree rises per year? Sounds a bit more disturbing that way.
Net neutrality has nothing to do with bandwidth caps. It is more akin to Verizon not being able to go to Google and charge them a fee in order for you to go to Google's site at a reasonable speed. The content of the internet, no matter the source, should be received by the end user at the same speed. This is not to say that they can't tier speeds for different categories of data (http vs sip vs streaming video), but they can't extort money out of a provider over another for preferential treatment to get to the 'captive audience', aka the ISP's customers.
Is that like the city of Chicago, that relatively recently had their law made 'unenforceable' based on the Second Amendment? Based on the Supreme Court's ruling, it would seem to be only a matter of time before such bans would need to be removed in favor of "justifiable restrictions". Trust the NRA or some other entity to sue those places with bans to get that going.
If the list was so important, why wasn't it flagged Top Secret or something equally secure, instead of just 'Do not distribute on the internet'? When some 2-3 million people have access to a document, it is not secret by any stretch of the imagination.
That would mean that the carriers are looking out for their customers, instead of their shareholders. That just doesn't happen on a routine basis. For most companies, anytime they do something 'for the customer', what that really means is that it will make them more money and therefor be 'for the shareholders'.
How does stopping a customer from racking up a $1000 phone bill benefit the shareholders? If you can convince them it does, then you can probably get the company to act on that. Til then, buyer beware.
I know my concern while traveling with my child is two-fold. Unnecessary radiation exposure, and lack of comprehension.
My daughter has already had several pelvic X-rays for potential problems with the development of her hips. At that time, there was justified concern, although fortunately it turned out not to be an issue as things developed. However, irradiating my child during critical development periods just to prove that she isn't carrying a bomb to someone else is not a justified use of radiation in my view. Ionizing radiation doesn't just go away, and high volume or low volume, x-rays still carry enough energy to cause damage. Risk is higher than the reward of verifying she's not a terrorist.
My daughter also will not fully understand what is going on. She's young, and gets quite a lot, but when some TSA agent starts to feel her up to assert she's not carrying a gun, is she going to understand what's going on? Things children don't understand can be traumatic for them if they become frightened. Is one instance going to matter? No, perhaps, but if she's spooked for the next few hours, guess who gets to deal with her? All the airline passengers on the flight with me. Add to that, round trips require 2 such runs through security and we're seeing that this is definitely not easy on the children. You then get to ask, 'is it worth it?'
I'm all about safety when safety is the actual focus. These machines are like a technophile bouncing at the latest new gadget. They might be neat in technology, but lack something in implementation.