They can't. But they can stop legitimate businesses accepting bitcoin - just criminalise doing so, or apply regulations that impossible to comply with. That'll mean bitcoin remains the domain only of the underground economy, which renders it a lot less useful to criminals - what's the point of selling drugs for bitcoin if all you can buy are more drugs?
A couple of years ago I was given a packet of 'Chinese Lanterns.' Basically incendiary devices: Paper balloons heated by a candle so they float.
The instructions warned not to launch them near woodlands, fields or urban areas. Or near the coast, near airports, near overhead power lines, near military facilities. I'm not sure where you actually could launch them. Not that anyone follows the instructions.
I can see uses in whole-building UPSs. Now a power outage doesn't mean the office has to shut down for the day. The TCO might be lower than generators - more expensive to install, but costs next to nothing to maintain.
The strain gauge would at least be fail-safe: If it's faulty then the numbers won't match and the plane isn't going up until the fault is repaired.
Planes are very reliable now, due largely to the extreme level of regulation to which they are subject. The most unreliable component is the pilot. You can't trust the pilot.
I'd go for a very simple solution: 1. Pilot enters data. 2. Pilot hands to copilot. 3. Copilot enters data. 4. Pilot and copilot are forbidden from exchanging data until after the calculations are complete. 5. If both sets match, then ready for takeoff.
You shouldn't even need to calculate it - the plane can measure weight itsself. There are only three points of contact with the ground, easy to mount a strain gauge in the landing gear. It might not be precise enough, but it'll be fine for sanity checking - if the measured and calculate weights differ by more than the margin of error, plane refuses to bring the engines above taxi thrust.
I've just done much googling to figure this out, and I can't solve it. I've tried counting from sunset to sunset as was Jewish custom. I've tried counting potential tiny fractional days as whole days. It's not working.
The best I can manage is three days from death to resurrection by having him die on Wednesday. The story doesn't say what day he died, only what day he was burried - perhaps the Romans left him up the cross for a day before Joseph of Arimathea was able to talk them Pilate into returning the body for burial. That gives him one day corpse-on-a-stick and two days in the cave.
Christians in the US have something of a persecution complex. They want to be persecuted - their holy book tells them to expect it - but they are really a powerful majority. They solve this problem by imagining persecution wherever they can see a hint of it.
Stores not saying 'merry christmas?' Persecution. Requiring a government clerk to process all marriage forms, even those her religion forbids? Persecution. Christian parents facing legal action because they believe schooling of any kind for their children is pointless when Jesus is on his way? Persecution. A town government threatened with legal action for erecting a nativity scene on public property and using tax money? Persecution.
They tend to ignore actual persecution going on in other parts of the world in much the same way that their political opposites will scream about trivial or outright imaginary sexism in the US while ignoring the dismal state of womens' rights elsewhere.
I think "God wants me to cut off the end of my baby son's dick" is worse. At least if it's your own dick you can consent to it.
The deference to religious believe is so ridiculous that it overrules even child protection law - you're allowed to mutilate babies if your religion compels it.
It's still a pretty weird religion to outsiders. The central idea is that God had to sacrifice himself to himself in order to appease his sense of justice, otherwise he would have to burn everyone in hell for eternity because they violated rules that he wrote.
Most cold medication isn't a placebo. There's no way to cure the cold, or even a treatment to fight the virus effectively, but there are plenty that will lessen the symptoms. Ibuprofen for the headache, caffeine for the lethargy, pseudoephedrine* to clear the stuffy nose. They won't do a thing to actually fix the illness - you'll be just as ill, but you'll feel a lot better about it.
*Now largely replaced with the barely-effective phenylephrine, because pseudoephedrine is a precursor in methamphetamine manufacture.
"In both cases, there is no law that prohibits you from engaging in the speech. However, of course, if you engage in speech that actually causes harm, then you can be held responsible for the harm you caused. That is not a restriction on free speech."
So, you can say what you want, but if you say the wrong thing then the government will bring down the force of law upon you to punish you? That seems like a restriction to me, and at this point we're only arguing semantics. Who gets to define harm? Remember that Russia has criminalised all advocacy of gay rights by declaring that such speech is harmful to society.
Your 'classical view' of positive and negative rights is simplistic. There are plenty of forces other than government that are eager and able to suppress the rights of others with violence or intimidation - and one function of government is to limit their ability to do so. All you do is exchange one oppressor for another. There are some rights which do not require simply restricting government, but also forcing government to act in certain ways, like the ideal of equality under the law - which can only be achieved if government agents are compelled to set their personal views aside and treat everyone according to the same rules. Without that one you end up with Kim Davis officials who simply refuse to serve those they disagree with, or police who will turn a blind eye if their own friends are caught in illegal activity. Some rights can only be exercised under conditions that require government action to maintain - there's little point in having freedom of the press if media consolidation puts the press in the hands of only a few people, and there's no point in the right to a fair trial if the accused does not have access to legal representation as such a trial cannot be fair.
You seem to have fallen into the classic trap of American politics - viewing a complex issue in terms the liberal-conservative divide. It's a very real divide in American political culture, but it's also limiting - neither side is right on all issues, both sides are wrong on some issues, and there are many cases where members of one faction leap to condemn a point of view purely because it is endorsed by their bitter enemy.
1. US obscenity law. The supreme court has ruled many times that obscene material is not legally a form of speech. 2. The US does have defamation law. Is it really free speech if someone can sue you and ruin you financially for saying something insulting? 3. The 'fire in a crowded theatre' example is a textbook case of speech being limited for public safety.
I am not trying to argue that the US is some oppressive regime. I am trying to argue that they are directly comparable to Europe in terms of effective legal protections for individuals and legal recognition of their rights. They both have their frameworks, they both sort-of-work most of the time, and they are both subject to very similar exceptions and issues of enforcement where some governments or parts of government will outright ignore their own laws at times. In terms of which is more 'free' it's really difficult to say one way or the other. It depends which freedoms you value the most.
Any 'absolute' right without exception is a recipe for trouble - and two of them becomes impossible, because they will inevitably conflict at some point. I might claim an absolute right to free speech, but my neighbour then claims an absolute right to freedom of religion, and his religion demands blasphemers be executed. You can't have both: One or the other must be constrained.
A more accurate comparison would be an all-you-can-eat restaurant. The business model is founded upon a simple physical limitation: Humans have only a finite stomach volume. ISPs likewise are founded upon the assumption that if you promise unlimited data, most people can only sit through so many youtube videos in a month.
The problem for ISPs are the outliers. There are no humans with a fifty-gallon stomach, but there are plenty of customers who will see unlimited data as an invitation to download every song produced in the last century, or as a cheap alternative to a business service.
"The ECHR lists numerous exceptions to free speech; a few of them are protection of morality, protecting the reputation and rights of others, prevention of disorder."
The US Supreme Court has also ruled that all three of those are not covered by the first amendment under certain circumstances. You can still be sued for libel there.
"The UK government does what UK voters want it to do, but that contradicts the ECHR, yet the EU cannot actually force them to comply with the ECHR, and that is why Europe has free speech and freedom of association!"
Meanwhile the US continues to detain people for upwards of a decade in a secretive prison in Cuba without trial and using evidence they are not permitted to see. Rights are worth no more than can be enforced, and it's very hard to constrain the actions of a government in any country. The US constitution and the ECHR both make the effort, and both are partially effective.
I've heard it said that in the future, there will be no-one able to run for president - because with everyone's life extensively documented, there will always be skeletons in the closet. Embarrassing acts from teenage years, things said in haste or ill-worded, just waiting for the opposition's hired investigators to mine it from the archives.
Without that agreement, the world would be one angry conversation away from nuclear war. There's a reason diplomacy depends heavily upon protocols and formal agreements.
The president has attempted to negotiate an agreement which allows for peaceful coexistence with Iran. It's a pretty good deal too - it includes extensive monitoring of any nuclear activity and builds economic ties. Yes, it does mean making peace with an oppressive theocracy - but what is the alternative to that? The only alternative is open war followed by the same destabilisation that followed the war in Iraq, only on an even larger scale. It would kill hundreds of thousands (not from the fighting, but the destruction of government), cost trillions, and eventually a new and even worse power may emerge.
Uncomfortable peace, or hundreds of thousands dead and the global economy destroyed? Which would you prefer?
The only other option I can see would be targetted bombing of nuclear manufacturing sites, but that only buys time - Iran would just rebuild them.
According to the religious texts that Jews hold sacred, they did indeed found Israel after first wiping out the entire civilization that occupied the land prior.
But God said those people were evil, so that makes it ok.
Slashdot Mirror
They can't. But they can stop legitimate businesses accepting bitcoin - just criminalise doing so, or apply regulations that impossible to comply with. That'll mean bitcoin remains the domain only of the underground economy, which renders it a lot less useful to criminals - what's the point of selling drugs for bitcoin if all you can buy are more drugs?
A couple of years ago I was given a packet of 'Chinese Lanterns.' Basically incendiary devices: Paper balloons heated by a candle so they float.
The instructions warned not to launch them near woodlands, fields or urban areas. Or near the coast, near airports, near overhead power lines, near military facilities. I'm not sure where you actually could launch them. Not that anyone follows the instructions.
1. Locate GPS antenna.
2. Stab with pointy object.
Does mean you'll have to pilot it though, not rely on automatic following of a flight path.
I can see uses in whole-building UPSs. Now a power outage doesn't mean the office has to shut down for the day. The TCO might be lower than generators - more expensive to install, but costs next to nothing to maintain.
A meta-beowulf.
The strain gauge would at least be fail-safe: If it's faulty then the numbers won't match and the plane isn't going up until the fault is repaired.
Planes are very reliable now, due largely to the extreme level of regulation to which they are subject. The most unreliable component is the pilot. You can't trust the pilot.
I'd go for a very simple solution:
1. Pilot enters data.
2. Pilot hands to copilot.
3. Copilot enters data.
4. Pilot and copilot are forbidden from exchanging data until after the calculations are complete.
5. If both sets match, then ready for takeoff.
You shouldn't even need to calculate it - the plane can measure weight itsself. There are only three points of contact with the ground, easy to mount a strain gauge in the landing gear. It might not be precise enough, but it'll be fine for sanity checking - if the measured and calculate weights differ by more than the margin of error, plane refuses to bring the engines above taxi thrust.
I assume it turns back into wafer and wine as soon as someone induces vomiting or readies the stomach pump.
I've just done much googling to figure this out, and I can't solve it. I've tried counting from sunset to sunset as was Jewish custom. I've tried counting potential tiny fractional days as whole days. It's not working.
The best I can manage is three days from death to resurrection by having him die on Wednesday. The story doesn't say what day he died, only what day he was burried - perhaps the Romans left him up the cross for a day before Joseph of Arimathea was able to talk them Pilate into returning the body for burial. That gives him one day corpse-on-a-stick and two days in the cave.
Christians in the US have something of a persecution complex. They want to be persecuted - their holy book tells them to expect it - but they are really a powerful majority. They solve this problem by imagining persecution wherever they can see a hint of it.
Stores not saying 'merry christmas?' Persecution.
Requiring a government clerk to process all marriage forms, even those her religion forbids? Persecution.
Christian parents facing legal action because they believe schooling of any kind for their children is pointless when Jesus is on his way? Persecution.
A town government threatened with legal action for erecting a nativity scene on public property and using tax money? Persecution.
They tend to ignore actual persecution going on in other parts of the world in much the same way that their political opposites will scream about trivial or outright imaginary sexism in the US while ignoring the dismal state of womens' rights elsewhere.
I think "God wants me to cut off the end of my baby son's dick" is worse. At least if it's your own dick you can consent to it.
The deference to religious believe is so ridiculous that it overrules even child protection law - you're allowed to mutilate babies if your religion compels it.
The magic wafer is mostly confined to catholics.
It's still a pretty weird religion to outsiders. The central idea is that God had to sacrifice himself to himself in order to appease his sense of justice, otherwise he would have to burn everyone in hell for eternity because they violated rules that he wrote.
"Hi. We're from Intel, and we'd like to take a look at your multithreading, such as it is."
Most cold medication isn't a placebo. There's no way to cure the cold, or even a treatment to fight the virus effectively, but there are plenty that will lessen the symptoms. Ibuprofen for the headache, caffeine for the lethargy, pseudoephedrine* to clear the stuffy nose. They won't do a thing to actually fix the illness - you'll be just as ill, but you'll feel a lot better about it.
*Now largely replaced with the barely-effective phenylephrine, because pseudoephedrine is a precursor in methamphetamine manufacture.
I imagine that the more expensive the placebo, the more powerful the placebo effect will be.
"In both cases, there is no law that prohibits you from engaging in the speech. However, of course, if you engage in speech that actually causes harm, then you can be held responsible for the harm you caused. That is not a restriction on free speech."
So, you can say what you want, but if you say the wrong thing then the government will bring down the force of law upon you to punish you? That seems like a restriction to me, and at this point we're only arguing semantics. Who gets to define harm? Remember that Russia has criminalised all advocacy of gay rights by declaring that such speech is harmful to society.
Your 'classical view' of positive and negative rights is simplistic. There are plenty of forces other than government that are eager and able to suppress the rights of others with violence or intimidation - and one function of government is to limit their ability to do so. All you do is exchange one oppressor for another. There are some rights which do not require simply restricting government, but also forcing government to act in certain ways, like the ideal of equality under the law - which can only be achieved if government agents are compelled to set their personal views aside and treat everyone according to the same rules. Without that one you end up with Kim Davis officials who simply refuse to serve those they disagree with, or police who will turn a blind eye if their own friends are caught in illegal activity. Some rights can only be exercised under conditions that require government action to maintain - there's little point in having freedom of the press if media consolidation puts the press in the hands of only a few people, and there's no point in the right to a fair trial if the accused does not have access to legal representation as such a trial cannot be fair.
You seem to have fallen into the classic trap of American politics - viewing a complex issue in terms the liberal-conservative divide. It's a very real divide in American political culture, but it's also limiting - neither side is right on all issues, both sides are wrong on some issues, and there are many cases where members of one faction leap to condemn a point of view purely because it is endorsed by their bitter enemy.
It would give approximate frequency of access too. There has to be a time limit for considering multiple connections part of one session.
1. US obscenity law. The supreme court has ruled many times that obscene material is not legally a form of speech.
2. The US does have defamation law. Is it really free speech if someone can sue you and ruin you financially for saying something insulting?
3. The 'fire in a crowded theatre' example is a textbook case of speech being limited for public safety.
I am not trying to argue that the US is some oppressive regime. I am trying to argue that they are directly comparable to Europe in terms of effective legal protections for individuals and legal recognition of their rights. They both have their frameworks, they both sort-of-work most of the time, and they are both subject to very similar exceptions and issues of enforcement where some governments or parts of government will outright ignore their own laws at times. In terms of which is more 'free' it's really difficult to say one way or the other. It depends which freedoms you value the most.
Any 'absolute' right without exception is a recipe for trouble - and two of them becomes impossible, because they will inevitably conflict at some point. I might claim an absolute right to free speech, but my neighbour then claims an absolute right to freedom of religion, and his religion demands blasphemers be executed. You can't have both: One or the other must be constrained.
A more accurate comparison would be an all-you-can-eat restaurant. The business model is founded upon a simple physical limitation: Humans have only a finite stomach volume. ISPs likewise are founded upon the assumption that if you promise unlimited data, most people can only sit through so many youtube videos in a month.
The problem for ISPs are the outliers. There are no humans with a fifty-gallon stomach, but there are plenty of customers who will see unlimited data as an invitation to download every song produced in the last century, or as a cheap alternative to a business service.
"The ECHR lists numerous exceptions to free speech; a few of them are protection of morality, protecting the reputation and rights of others, prevention of disorder."
The US Supreme Court has also ruled that all three of those are not covered by the first amendment under certain circumstances. You can still be sued for libel there.
"The UK government does what UK voters want it to do, but that contradicts the ECHR, yet the EU cannot actually force them to comply with the ECHR, and that is why Europe has free speech and freedom of association!"
Meanwhile the US continues to detain people for upwards of a decade in a secretive prison in Cuba without trial and using evidence they are not permitted to see. Rights are worth no more than can be enforced, and it's very hard to constrain the actions of a government in any country. The US constitution and the ECHR both make the effort, and both are partially effective.
I've heard it said that in the future, there will be no-one able to run for president - because with everyone's life extensively documented, there will always be skeletons in the closet. Embarrassing acts from teenage years, things said in haste or ill-worded, just waiting for the opposition's hired investigators to mine it from the archives.
Without that agreement, the world would be one angry conversation away from nuclear war. There's a reason diplomacy depends heavily upon protocols and formal agreements.
The president has attempted to negotiate an agreement which allows for peaceful coexistence with Iran. It's a pretty good deal too - it includes extensive monitoring of any nuclear activity and builds economic ties. Yes, it does mean making peace with an oppressive theocracy - but what is the alternative to that? The only alternative is open war followed by the same destabilisation that followed the war in Iraq, only on an even larger scale. It would kill hundreds of thousands (not from the fighting, but the destruction of government), cost trillions, and eventually a new and even worse power may emerge.
Uncomfortable peace, or hundreds of thousands dead and the global economy destroyed? Which would you prefer?
The only other option I can see would be targetted bombing of nuclear manufacturing sites, but that only buys time - Iran would just rebuild them.
According to the religious texts that Jews hold sacred, they did indeed found Israel after first wiping out the entire civilization that occupied the land prior.
But God said those people were evil, so that makes it ok.