The expense is all in legal proceedings. The appeals and re-appeals and such can easily drag on for many years, consuming a lot of expensive lawyer-time.
There was a BBC program, 'How To Kill A Human Being,' that examined various methods of execution. The presenter concluded that nitrogen was the ideal way. The idea was presented to the director of a pro-death-penalty campaign group, but he rejected it on the grounds that it was 'inhumane to the victim,' because a pleasant death did not satisfy the demands of justice.
Nitrogen aspixiation is an almost ideal way. It's cheap, very reliable (Survival rate: Zero), needs no people of medical skill, and uses only a commonly available mass-produced gas.
The only problem is that many death penalty proponents consider it insufficiently inhumane. It's actually a pleasant way to die: A period of euphoria, then unconsciousness, then death. So it doesn't do much to satisfy the desire for collective vengence.
Capital punishment does have defensible justifications. There are some people who are simply too dangerous to release and have no chance of rehabilitation - in which case execution may be a far more efficient use of resources than many decades of expensive prison time at taxpayer expense, especially if they need to be kept in isolation.
But that isn't the reason so many people support the death penalty. The main reason seems to be a sadistic desire to see 'evildoers' suffer, covered up under the polite excuse of 'justice.' Wrong has been done, and only by inflicting equal or greater suffering upon the guilty can the demand for vengence be satisfied.
Find me one that can: 1. Manage 500A DC at 12V 2. Sustain that for the duration (About thirty seconds) of an experiment. 3. Still be affordable to a lowly helpdesk monkey.
Perhaps. But on the other hand, this involves children and porn, circumstances under which the constitution somehow becomes a bit more flexible. The FCC regulations prohibiting profanity or indecency in broadcast could be used as precidant - they already established a governmental authority to regulate content in some manners. If it works for broadcast, why not for a minicipal internet?
In many places it would be harder not to add filters. The local tabloids would soon be awash with 'TAX MONEY SUBSIDISING PORNOGRAPHY!' stories, and the local groups of professionally morally outraged people would demand someone put a stop to it.
Unlikely. There are already federal laws that require internet censorship 'for the children' as a condition of funding for libraries - it's in the Children's Internet Protection Act. The ACLU challenged it, initially won, but was overturned on appeal to by the supreme court.
They've a few other advantages. Their power density is huge, which is great for things that need brief but very high-power surges.
I used a few of them in hobbyist high-power engineering to power the solonoid on an experiment. Five hundred amps DC at 12V with ease. Any attempt to do that with batteries or a high-current PSU would have taken up half the living room.
The experiment was to determine the effect a high magnetic field would have on an arc. It was quite the success: The arc behaved very differently indeed in the presence of the field.
Almost happened to me too, though it was so long ago I can't remember exactly what I did. I think I might have been writing a website using notepad and HTML rather than dreamweaver or frontpage like the teacher asked. Whatever it was, one of the teachers got scared and assumed I was trying to do something dangerous. I only avoided expulsion because another teacher came to my defense.
Only if everyone uses the same meaning. Let's say that you are part of a community in which 'thief' is a slang term for something else, something legal. Perhaps your local friends like do put on street plays, and call themselves 'thieves' jokingly to imply that you are stealing people's attention. Now the judge comes along and finds that you call yourself a thief - but, not being aware of the subcultural linguistic difference, he takes that as an admission of theft in the more common definition.
That's basically what happened here. Misunderstandings about the word 'hacker' occur all the time, as it means different things in different communities. This one was just more serious than most, as it affected a judge's decision.
Means and *intent.* That's why there's a big fuss being made here. The judge saw someone describe themselves as a hacker and, presumably as a result of the difference in meaning of the term between technical and general populations, interpreted this as an admission of criminal intent. It's just the latest in a long, long run of misunderstandings resulting from a disagreement in definition. This one is of a particularly high profile as it impacted a judges decision.
I was nearly expelled from school over a similar misunderstanding myself. I scared a teacher by doing some mystic technical stuff - I forget what it was exactly, but probably something like writing a webpage using notepad rather than Frontpage like we were supposed to. Whatever I did, the school administration got scared and accused me of 'hacking.' When I admitted to hacking (by by definition) they took this as an admission that I was trying to circumvent the school security in some manner (Hacking, by their definition). It was only because one teacher in particular dared to defend me that I avoided expulsion, and was only suspended for three days.
You're used to talking on slashdot. There is a difference in vocabulary between the specialist technical community here and the more general public. To most people, 'hacker' means 'one of those criminals on the internet who try to steal my credit card.'
Plus the seven all have loopholes - the 'gun show exemption' in federal law overrules state laws at gun show events, so even in states where background checks, waiting periods and registration are required for normal sales it's still possible to go to a gun show and avoid all that. It's usually done by people who just don't want to bother with the paperwork.
It's pretty hard to destroy a USB port. There's over-current protection (Even if just a polyfuse), and the highest voltage present is 5V, which isn't going to do any harm no matter what line. The only way you could destroy the USB port would be if the device took external power from another source and either fed a high voltage back into the USB port (You have to *try* to screw up that badly) or didn't allow for the possibility of a ground loop and used a non-isolating charger (Much more plausible).
2. Is intentional. There was no reason the devices couldn't identify using, say, a 128-bit number. Large enough that collisions would be statistically a negligable possibility. The choice to keep the identifiers short enough that a central registry needs to hand them out was quite deliberate.
Also, the trademark on arbitary numbers... probably doesn't matter, but Intel's PCI vender ID is 0x8086.
WBC are mostly harmless. Much as I hate to defend them, they have always been non-violent protesters - and to keep their cool is quite an achievement given the type of (well-earned) abuse that has been directed at them. I think it helps that they have a real persecution complex going, so the more hated they are the more they feel justified in their beliefs.
There's a rumor that they used to have a mercury rectifier running one of the lifts, up until the 2000s. It worked, so no-one ever raised the subject of replacing it until several decades after it should have been considered obsolete.
I don't know how much truth there is to the rumor, though.
Slashdot Mirror
Painless, but also upsetting for the relatives. They like a nice clean corpse.
The expense is all in legal proceedings. The appeals and re-appeals and such can easily drag on for many years, consuming a lot of expensive lawyer-time.
There was a BBC program, 'How To Kill A Human Being,' that examined various methods of execution. The presenter concluded that nitrogen was the ideal way. The idea was presented to the director of a pro-death-penalty campaign group, but he rejected it on the grounds that it was 'inhumane to the victim,' because a pleasant death did not satisfy the demands of justice.
Nitrogen aspixiation is an almost ideal way. It's cheap, very reliable (Survival rate: Zero), needs no people of medical skill, and uses only a commonly available mass-produced gas.
The only problem is that many death penalty proponents consider it insufficiently inhumane. It's actually a pleasant way to die: A period of euphoria, then unconsciousness, then death. So it doesn't do much to satisfy the desire for collective vengence.
Deserve? What does deserve have to do with this?
Capital punishment does have defensible justifications. There are some people who are simply too dangerous to release and have no chance of rehabilitation - in which case execution may be a far more efficient use of resources than many decades of expensive prison time at taxpayer expense, especially if they need to be kept in isolation.
But that isn't the reason so many people support the death penalty. The main reason seems to be a sadistic desire to see 'evildoers' suffer, covered up under the polite excuse of 'justice.' Wrong has been done, and only by inflicting equal or greater suffering upon the guilty can the demand for vengence be satisfied.
Find me one that can:
1. Manage 500A DC at 12V
2. Sustain that for the duration (About thirty seconds) of an experiment.
3. Still be affordable to a lowly helpdesk monkey.
Perhaps. But on the other hand, this involves children and porn, circumstances under which the constitution somehow becomes a bit more flexible. The FCC regulations prohibiting profanity or indecency in broadcast could be used as precidant - they already established a governmental authority to regulate content in some manners. If it works for broadcast, why not for a minicipal internet?
In many places it would be harder not to add filters. The local tabloids would soon be awash with 'TAX MONEY SUBSIDISING PORNOGRAPHY!' stories, and the local groups of professionally morally outraged people would demand someone put a stop to it.
Unlikely. There are already federal laws that require internet censorship 'for the children' as a condition of funding for libraries - it's in the Children's Internet Protection Act. The ACLU challenged it, initially won, but was overturned on appeal to by the supreme court.
2.5V, 2600F. The big ones. Strapped six in series to get something that could take the voltage.
Welders are AC.
They've a few other advantages. Their power density is huge, which is great for things that need brief but very high-power surges.
I used a few of them in hobbyist high-power engineering to power the solonoid on an experiment. Five hundred amps DC at 12V with ease. Any attempt to do that with batteries or a high-current PSU would have taken up half the living room.
The experiment was to determine the effect a high magnetic field would have on an arc. It was quite the success: The arc behaved very differently indeed in the presence of the field.
Work and sleep. I've not yet had time to devote to googling up the complex interactions of state and federal US law on gun control.
I can't remember if it was frontpage or dreamweaver. Didn't really seem worth remembering: I didn't try to use it for long.
Almost happened to me too, though it was so long ago I can't remember exactly what I did. I think I might have been writing a website using notepad and HTML rather than dreamweaver or frontpage like the teacher asked. Whatever it was, one of the teachers got scared and assumed I was trying to do something dangerous. I only avoided expulsion because another teacher came to my defense.
Only if everyone uses the same meaning. Let's say that you are part of a community in which 'thief' is a slang term for something else, something legal. Perhaps your local friends like do put on street plays, and call themselves 'thieves' jokingly to imply that you are stealing people's attention. Now the judge comes along and finds that you call yourself a thief - but, not being aware of the subcultural linguistic difference, he takes that as an admission of theft in the more common definition.
That's basically what happened here. Misunderstandings about the word 'hacker' occur all the time, as it means different things in different communities. This one was just more serious than most, as it affected a judge's decision.
Means and *intent.* That's why there's a big fuss being made here. The judge saw someone describe themselves as a hacker and, presumably as a result of the difference in meaning of the term between technical and general populations, interpreted this as an admission of criminal intent. It's just the latest in a long, long run of misunderstandings resulting from a disagreement in definition. This one is of a particularly high profile as it impacted a judges decision.
I was nearly expelled from school over a similar misunderstanding myself. I scared a teacher by doing some mystic technical stuff - I forget what it was exactly, but probably something like writing a webpage using notepad rather than Frontpage like we were supposed to. Whatever I did, the school administration got scared and accused me of 'hacking.' When I admitted to hacking (by by definition) they took this as an admission that I was trying to circumvent the school security in some manner (Hacking, by their definition). It was only because one teacher in particular dared to defend me that I avoided expulsion, and was only suspended for three days.
You're used to talking on slashdot. There is a difference in vocabulary between the specialist technical community here and the more general public. To most people, 'hacker' means 'one of those criminals on the internet who try to steal my credit card.'
The dispute over the meaning of 'hacker' has been going on so long, there's a wikipedia page on the subject.
Plus the seven all have loopholes - the 'gun show exemption' in federal law overrules state laws at gun show events, so even in states where background checks, waiting periods and registration are required for normal sales it's still possible to go to a gun show and avoid all that. It's usually done by people who just don't want to bother with the paperwork.
It's pretty hard to destroy a USB port. There's over-current protection (Even if just a polyfuse), and the highest voltage present is 5V, which isn't going to do any harm no matter what line. The only way you could destroy the USB port would be if the device took external power from another source and either fed a high voltage back into the USB port (You have to *try* to screw up that badly) or didn't allow for the possibility of a ground loop and used a non-isolating charger (Much more plausible).
2. Is intentional. There was no reason the devices couldn't identify using, say, a 128-bit number. Large enough that collisions would be statistically a negligable possibility. The choice to keep the identifiers short enough that a central registry needs to hand them out was quite deliberate.
Also, the trademark on arbitary numbers... probably doesn't matter, but Intel's PCI vender ID is 0x8086.
WBC are mostly harmless. Much as I hate to defend them, they have always been non-violent protesters - and to keep their cool is quite an achievement given the type of (well-earned) abuse that has been directed at them. I think it helps that they have a real persecution complex going, so the more hated they are the more they feel justified in their beliefs.
But every time someone tries to read the writings, they get a different interpretation.
You're doing it wrong!
- London
There's a rumor that they used to have a mercury rectifier running one of the lifts, up until the 2000s. It worked, so no-one ever raised the subject of replacing it until several decades after it should have been considered obsolete.
I don't know how much truth there is to the rumor, though.