I believe some states do have laws that make it a criminal offense to prevent access to a commercial premises, for precisely this reason. A well-placed group of protesters can effectively shut a company down, so usually the police have some power to forcibly relocate the protesters - either to somewhere out of the way, or to a jail cell.
I'm guessing prosecutors used the usual plea bargin approach. Inform him that they could maybe get a conviction and sentence him to five years in jail for computer crime, or he could confess right now and they promise he'll get off with probation and a fine. Fighting in court would be a risk - why risk losing?
This wasn't property damage. It was disruption of business. The same technique that was key to the advancement of the civil rights movement and a great favorite of anti-vietnam-war protesters and environmental campaigners. It's still used by a lot of pro-life protesters today. It's the classic sit-in. Don't break anything, don't hurt anyone, just get in the way and hurt profits by hindering business.
Arguably such a practice should be restricted because it can be used in a disproportionately undemocratic way - a very small group could cripple a government or huge commercial operation by picking the right spot to occupy. We probably don't want a situation where anyone can shut down a factory by just handcuffing themselves across the delivery road - especially as a lot of the self-appointed guardians of morality would (and do) happily use it to drive businesses they consider personally immoral out of town or into bankruptcy.
But what we see here is different in only one key way from all that: Now, it's *on a computer!* That makes it scary and dangerous. It isn't activism any more - it's cyber-terrorism! Prosecutors can and do use that to push for penalties far more severe than would be issued for a corresponding offline protest action.
There's an old expression: Might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.
Roughly meaning: If the punishment for a minor crime is going to ruin you, why stop at minor? Go for something serious. They can't make the punishment any worse.
Plus it has a fuse in the plug itsself, and can handle higher current (and with the higher voltage, more than twice the power) than the nasty US plugs.
The design also makes it much harder to accidentally knock a plug out by pulling on the cable.
Not in the UK. Our plugs are very well designed. Even the sockets include covers over the power holes which can only be retracted by inserting the (Slightly longer) earth pin first.
They are all biased. The only way I know to counter that is to watch a diverse mix of media with a lot of different biases, and try to put together a composite picture of current events from all of them.
Most people simply pick a few media sources that are biased towards their own views, then dismiss all others as liars or a manipulative conspiracy.
A car would operate next to a TIG too. The worst they will put out is a very strong DC magnetic field - no nasty RF that can travel long distances, no current-inducing AC, and no high frequencies. Little bit of RF from the arc, but nowhere close to what this thing must generate.
Typo. It's clear I meant '70mm' or '7cm' and got mixed up. That's just my rough estimate though.
Even if the pacemaker itsself is small enough not to pick up much signal, the surrounding flesh isn't - the slight voltages induced could still be enough to screw up the sensing and cause it to start pulsing out of sync, inducing fibrilation. Or worse, set a defib off.
Pacemakers and implanted defibrilators monitor the function of the heart by detecting voltage gradients of milivolts. This weapon can reliably knock out electronics in a car - electronics designed to operate in a very harsh EMI environment due to the presence of the nearby igntion system and contained within the metal body of the car. An enclosure that provides a bit more protection than 5mm of glass and 70cm of flesh.
So when they say this device poses no risk to those with a pacemaker, consider me a bit skeptical of that claim.
And the world will celebrate... for two days, until people realise that this 'life' isn't the type that talks, but most likely algae-like organisms, plants at best. Then the world goes back to watching celebrities do stupid things on television.
If we were dealing with humans or most other mammals, I'd do it by removing the SRY gene - that way every egg would develop as female, and all you need to do to turn a few male is inject them with a little TDF at the right point during incubation. You can even continue to breed them normally, mostly - just need to run an easy genetic test on your breeders.
That wouldn't work on chickens, though: The X/Y, SRY->TDF->gonads chain that humans use is quite different from the ZW method by which bird genetics handles gender, and I know almost nothing at all about that subject. I imagine a specialist could figure it out, but as with birds females are the heterogametic sex and males homogametic (The opposite of XY) it is probably a bit trickier.
If we're really lucky, it's just one gene on W coding for a female counterpart to TDF, or something simple like that - in which case it may be possible to ensure female birds simply by injecting the egg with the appropriate hormone, no genetic tinkering required.
I figured that out from wikipedia alone, so don't take me as an expert on this.
The grinder is a standard piece of animal-welfare propaganda, ever since an activist undercover at a factory manager to get some suitably disturbing video of the process in action. Footage like that can be a very powerful tool for influencing people to action.
Sure they can. They have lobbyists. If enough owners and managers decided they wanted it to happen, they would throw a few million dollars more into the lobbying fund and make it so. The law may not be cheap, but it's still for sale.
Corporations can't vote because the managers know that one more vote isn't going to make much difference. They still provide the most important function: When a corporation breaks the law, they may face a fine. Only rarely does the manager who ordered the illegal action face any personal consequence. The most they have to fear is a stock price fall. Thus they ask the obvious question: Will the corporation make more money from this action than the expected fine when we get caught?
No. We kill them in a *cheap* way. Humane too, providing it doesn't conflict with the 'cheap' part. There is huge commercial pressure to make meat (and related products) as cheap as possible - that's why battery hens and the feedlot were invented.
The standard method of disposal for live male chicks (A byproduct of egg manufacture - half the chicks are useless as egg-layers) is to drop them live into a meat grinder. Why do this? Is it because factory owners are sadists? No, it's simply because that's the cheapest way to dispose of them. It would just cost too much to have a human painlessly execute each one, or even to waste factory space and maintenance costs on an elaborate nitrogen chamber setup. Dropping them live into the grinder is the most cost-effective means. Those feeling guilty can at least be satisfied that their pain, though doubtless severe, will also be brief.
Religious slaughter excepted. That's a bit of an odd case, as the rituals were set in stone millenia ago and resist alteration.
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I believe some states do have laws that make it a criminal offense to prevent access to a commercial premises, for precisely this reason. A well-placed group of protesters can effectively shut a company down, so usually the police have some power to forcibly relocate the protesters - either to somewhere out of the way, or to a jail cell.
I'm guessing prosecutors used the usual plea bargin approach. Inform him that they could maybe get a conviction and sentence him to five years in jail for computer crime, or he could confess right now and they promise he'll get off with probation and a fine. Fighting in court would be a risk - why risk losing?
This wasn't property damage. It was disruption of business. The same technique that was key to the advancement of the civil rights movement and a great favorite of anti-vietnam-war protesters and environmental campaigners. It's still used by a lot of pro-life protesters today. It's the classic sit-in. Don't break anything, don't hurt anyone, just get in the way and hurt profits by hindering business.
Arguably such a practice should be restricted because it can be used in a disproportionately undemocratic way - a very small group could cripple a government or huge commercial operation by picking the right spot to occupy. We probably don't want a situation where anyone can shut down a factory by just handcuffing themselves across the delivery road - especially as a lot of the self-appointed guardians of morality would (and do) happily use it to drive businesses they consider personally immoral out of town or into bankruptcy.
But what we see here is different in only one key way from all that: Now, it's *on a computer!* That makes it scary and dangerous. It isn't activism any more - it's cyber-terrorism! Prosecutors can and do use that to push for penalties far more severe than would be issued for a corresponding offline protest action.
There's an old expression: Might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.
Roughly meaning: If the punishment for a minor crime is going to ruin you, why stop at minor? Go for something serious. They can't make the punishment any worse.
Plus it has a fuse in the plug itsself, and can handle higher current (and with the higher voltage, more than twice the power) than the nasty US plugs.
The design also makes it much harder to accidentally knock a plug out by pulling on the cable.
Not in the UK. Our plugs are very well designed. Even the sockets include covers over the power holes which can only be retracted by inserting the (Slightly longer) earth pin first.
They are all biased. The only way I know to counter that is to watch a diverse mix of media with a lot of different biases, and try to put together a composite picture of current events from all of them.
Most people simply pick a few media sources that are biased towards their own views, then dismiss all others as liars or a manipulative conspiracy.
A car would operate next to a TIG too. The worst they will put out is a very strong DC magnetic field - no nasty RF that can travel long distances, no current-inducing AC, and no high frequencies. Little bit of RF from the arc, but nowhere close to what this thing must generate.
Typo. It's clear I meant '70mm' or '7cm' and got mixed up. That's just my rough estimate though.
Even if the pacemaker itsself is small enough not to pick up much signal, the surrounding flesh isn't - the slight voltages induced could still be enough to screw up the sensing and cause it to start pulsing out of sync, inducing fibrilation. Or worse, set a defib off.
Pacemakers and implanted defibrilators monitor the function of the heart by detecting voltage gradients of milivolts. This weapon can reliably knock out electronics in a car - electronics designed to operate in a very harsh EMI environment due to the presence of the nearby igntion system and contained within the metal body of the car. An enclosure that provides a bit more protection than 5mm of glass and 70cm of flesh.
So when they say this device poses no risk to those with a pacemaker, consider me a bit skeptical of that claim.
Look down.
And the world will celebrate... for two days, until people realise that this 'life' isn't the type that talks, but most likely algae-like organisms, plants at best. Then the world goes back to watching celebrities do stupid things on television.
Also, it neatly attaches to vertical sections to carry the cables tidily from ceiling height down to the desks.
http://www.screwfix.com/p/square-line-gutter-114mm-white-pack-of-6/16271
It's cheap, durable, hides the cables perfectly, is available in three colors (Black, grey, white), cuts to length and can be easily decorated.
Drainpipe should be ideal.
If we were dealing with humans or most other mammals, I'd do it by removing the SRY gene - that way every egg would develop as female, and all you need to do to turn a few male is inject them with a little TDF at the right point during incubation. You can even continue to breed them normally, mostly - just need to run an easy genetic test on your breeders.
That wouldn't work on chickens, though: The X/Y, SRY->TDF->gonads chain that humans use is quite different from the ZW method by which bird genetics handles gender, and I know almost nothing at all about that subject. I imagine a specialist could figure it out, but as with birds females are the heterogametic sex and males homogametic (The opposite of XY) it is probably a bit trickier.
If we're really lucky, it's just one gene on W coding for a female counterpart to TDF, or something simple like that - in which case it may be possible to ensure female birds simply by injecting the egg with the appropriate hormone, no genetic tinkering required.
I figured that out from wikipedia alone, so don't take me as an expert on this.
The grinder is a standard piece of animal-welfare propaganda, ever since an activist undercover at a factory manager to get some suitably disturbing video of the process in action. Footage like that can be a very powerful tool for influencing people to action.
Chick. Not chicken. The little fluffy yellow things.
Females go to the egg production facility, males go to the grinder.
Sure they can. They have lobbyists. If enough owners and managers decided they wanted it to happen, they would throw a few million dollars more into the lobbying fund and make it so. The law may not be cheap, but it's still for sale.
I view PETA as a core of crazy surrounded by well-intentioned and reasonable animal lovers who just don't realise how batshit insane the leaders are.
Corporations can't vote because the managers know that one more vote isn't going to make much difference. They still provide the most important function: When a corporation breaks the law, they may face a fine. Only rarely does the manager who ordered the illegal action face any personal consequence. The most they have to fear is a stock price fall. Thus they ask the obvious question: Will the corporation make more money from this action than the expected fine when we get caught?
I work with children. I wouldn't mind seeing a few of them experimented on.
" kill them in a humane way"
No. We kill them in a *cheap* way. Humane too, providing it doesn't conflict with the 'cheap' part. There is huge commercial pressure to make meat (and related products) as cheap as possible - that's why battery hens and the feedlot were invented.
The standard method of disposal for live male chicks (A byproduct of egg manufacture - half the chicks are useless as egg-layers) is to drop them live into a meat grinder. Why do this? Is it because factory owners are sadists? No, it's simply because that's the cheapest way to dispose of them. It would just cost too much to have a human painlessly execute each one, or even to waste factory space and maintenance costs on an elaborate nitrogen chamber setup. Dropping them live into the grinder is the most cost-effective means. Those feeling guilty can at least be satisfied that their pain, though doubtless severe, will also be brief.
Religious slaughter excepted. That's a bit of an odd case, as the rituals were set in stone millenia ago and resist alteration.
It'd be very visual. Congestion would appear as a flock of drones circling and waiting for a spot on the charging tower.
And packet loss would need a hard hat.
Only if you need to access them all at once.
My library for a long time was in the form of a row of drives sitting on the shelf, and a hot-swap bay.
A parcel-switched network?