Nor can you enter a private building where management has decided to hire security and implement metal detectors, without authorization.
Unless you present at the door and security just lets you in, believing you belong there,
or you gave them some legitimate-sounding explanation of why you want to enter....
That may put you in a better position -- once the security guard lets you in,
the owner/employees can no longer claim you were trespassing; since the guard allowed you
in, you have essentially been invited/authorized.
If you just walk into a private building uninvited, with no security guard,
with no permission or sign inviting you in, you're breaking the law anyways.
Having a 'metal detector' and guard at the door is not what makes trespassing
a crime.
mandated the U.S. Secret Service to establish a nationwide network of Electronic Crimes Task Forces (ECTFs) to investigate and prevent attacks on financial and critical infrastructures in the United States.
At the start of their investigation, the Secret Service had to ensure it was not staging for a larger attack. In this case someone was using Apple's computers but they didn't know who.
Wait... a few Apple display model computers in two stores count as Financial/Critical Infrastructure?
Since when?
since they're the ones whose terms of service were violated by the malicious edits
You assume the edits were malicious, and they weren't actually removing a relatively unknown non-notable Micropayments company from a list of 'notable micropayment companies'
Or claiming such in good faith
The Wiki was working as it should be; if the company actually was notable, there should have been no problem simply reverting the edit.
Sounds like an attempt to use the courts to make an end-run around Wikipedia policy and editor consensus
if any evidence can be found to show that VISA/MC reacted at the request of the US Government, the violation becomes pretty straightforward. The government cannot suppress free speech, either directly or by employing the credit card companies as agents to do its bidding.
I will agree with that. If the government, or any government representatives such as elected officials (president, senator, house member), or staff, DoJ worker, etc, pressured MC or Visa to block payments based on a political message,
then there would be a clear violation.
And it would be the government violating the law, not necessarily MC/Visa, who merely executed illegal actions on their behalf, possibly in good faith, that the government would not order to do something the government was not allowed to do.
In civilized world (doesnt include america) corporations HAVE to pay interns at least minimum wage.
In the US, corporations do HAVE to pay interns at least minimum wage; there is one special exception that applies to internships solely for personal educational/training purposes of the student,
and there are strict standards to be met for that exception to apply,
see US Department of Labor Fact Sheet 71:
The Test For Unpaid Interns
There are some circumstances under which individuals who participate in “for-profit” private sector internships or training programs may do so without compensation. The Supreme Court has held that the term "suffer or permit to work" cannot be interpreted so as to make a person whose work serves only his or her own interest an employee of another who provides aid or instruction. This may apply to interns who receive training for their own educational benefit if the training meets certain criteria. The determination of whether an internship or training program meets this exclusion depends upon all of the facts and circumstances of each such program.
The following six criteria must be applied when making this determination:
The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;
The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;
The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;
The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;
The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and
The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.
If all of the factors listed above are met, an employment relationship does not exist under the FLSA, and the Act’s minimum wage and overtime provisions do not apply to the intern.
Actually, the fix was the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. So, by definition, it was constitutional (baring any problems with the amendment process).
We are discussing anti-discrimination and affirmative action laws, specifically. The 13th amendment doesn't have anything to do with discriminatory business practices; the 13th amendment forbids slavery. Now it is a true historical fact, that in North America slavery became discriminatory, as indentured servitude had been replaced with chattel slavery, resulting in all slaves being African or Native Americans.
Enslavement based on race was only one very extreme type of discrimination however.
So the 13th amendment addressed only that one specific problem.
But the racial discrimination went way beyond slavery, evidenced by the fact it continued
even after the 13th amendment was passed, well into the 60s.
It's not only blocking some customers, but blocking whole industries from its service and essentially trying to enforce morals via its payment service.
Well, I think many of these are for their own protection, take h for example: (h) ammunition, firearms, or certain firearm parts or accessories, or (i),certain weapons or knives regulated under applicable law
If they allow ammunition/firearm transactions to be processed, there is a fact that firearms are often used in the commission of crimes -- that means they are likely to get a lot of demands from law enforcement for records.
These kinds of requests are a burden, and incur expenses that cannot be passed on to law enforcement,
but must be complied with.
So they could either charge higher fees, or they could refuse the transactions.... the choice of having (h) in the agreement, probably benefits most PayPal users, who aren't in the gun business.
(g) items are similarly risky.
Participating in the sale of sexually oriented services are likely to be illegal,
and result in more forced records discovery by law enforcement.
(e) and (f) are of course items specifically prohibited by law, that the customer's not allowed to deal in.
(d) is likely to result in law enforcement requests / discovery for lawsuits as well.
Paypal can charge for civil compliance with a subpoena, but they may make a conscious decision
of specifically wishing to avoid that.
They probably do not wish the PayPal name associated with "racial" / "hate" materials, and this is about branding.
(a), (b), and (c) are all items that are illegal to trade, and PayPal can't have a policy of allowing without taking on huge risks themselves, they must stop doing business with someone and report it to authorities, if it comes to their attention a transaction fits under those.
This is why paper money is printed by the government and why digital money should be too. It doesn't make sense to outsource economic infrastructure to the private sector. Having to pay a fee to use money is like being required to pay a fee for walking down the street. Why we accept this treatment online and hasn't come up with a public government controlled standard for digital currency transactions is beyond me.
I would think long and hard before I said "I wan't the government handling digital currency transactions";
that means the government would have to build the infrastructure at cost, they'd essentially be a monopoly, then.
The payment card industry works so well because there is so much profit to be made, they're able to justify the expenditures required to keep it highly available, and keep it secure. I'm not so sure the government wouldn't botch that up.
More importantly.... if the government processed every digital currency transaction, there would be no privacy -- you can bet, the contents of every single transaction would be immediately available for review by law enforcement, with all information about both parties to the xaction.
At least with the payment card companies, we know there's a limiting factor -- the company's own costs of sharing information are a deterrant, unless the gov't pays them handsomely.
these are not 'just companies'. they ARE the financial infrastructure, in very many ways.
the water company can't decide not to serve you. they can't ban you. this is essentially the same. once things are at this scale (bastardcard included) they HAVE to be impartial and offer services to all customers.
Mastercard refusing to process payments for you is not like having the water turned off.
It is more like FedEx or UPS decides to blacklist you, and inform you that they will no longer
accept any package to be sent from your address.
Yes, you might have just lost one of your convenient options for delivering your products,
but nothing stops you from using independent freight companies or using an alternative like DHL.
As large as they are, they are not a municipal monopoly. Payment cards are not the financial infrastructure.
Mastercard is a payment card company, not SWIFT, and
there are alternatives available to every service Mastercard provides.
Mastercard's service is not critical to exchange payments -- it is just a convenient method of conducting transactions.
For example, Visa, AMEX, ACH, EFT/ wire transfers, PayPal eCheck, money orders, paper cheques, AmazonPayments, or WU are a few alternatives to MC.
"Financial infrastructure companies" also commonly deny services to customers, usually because the bank decides the credit score is too low, or insufficient history, to issue a LOC and grant them a plastiq payment card.
Sure, if I opened a bar and posted a sign saying "Black people not allowed", everyone who is enraged should just stfu and go to a different bar instead. Right?
Well, in fundamental principal, yes, you should be able to post the sign, as despicable and reprehensible as that is, because, while the government can regulate commerce, nobody can force you to do business, and there is a constitutionally protected right to be stupid.
In practice, NO, because race and skin color are special.
Better go find a better example; race and gender discrimination are so special and privileged
that it is a 'special case', they are blocked/unacceptable in a manner more strongly than almost any other type of business decision.
It's a sensitive issue, so no, you can't do that, not without serious reprisal from the public, including vigilantes, government officials, and your suppliers/vendors are likely to cut you off should they learn of this. Good luck running a bar, if the liquor companies refuse to ship you anything or allow you to place orders. See, this cuts both ways; if you use a "no black people" sign, your suppliers can send you a letter that says "No bars that refuse blacks may order products from us". Also, local government can discriminate against your bar in the same way -- by revoking the liquor license, so you better be in a place and doing a business that doesn't require any licenses to operate.
Due to events from American history, there was racial discrimination in the past, it was widespread, and needed to be stopped for the good of society, so special laws (constitutional or not) were put into place to ban it.
And public reaction has shifted strongly to the opposite position -- that is, to say public opinion is highly anti-discriminatory; even if you're not actually discriminatory, the mere perception that you are, can ruin you,
better err on the side of affirmatively favoring black people in your bar, if you really want to be safe.
I wouldn't recommend posting such an extreme sign, unless your place is a 'poster' or some sort of reenactment/museum, and the sign is showing what an actual storefront looked like lin the 1950s.
There is a constitutionally protected right to freedom of speech, which enables you to post just about any sign you want on your private property, possibly subject to government regulations, when it is visible to the public, about what size/position/whether you can post any sign at all, but the content of messages you send are constitutionally protected,
especially if they are intended to express a political message.
In reality, however, you cannot do that, because (1) enraged people are likely to vandalize your business, even if the sign's sole purpose is to express a political message (and not to physically refuse anyone service)
(2) the contents of the sign is likely to result in a disturbance of the peace, when people the sign applies to show up and are excessively angered
(3) because of (1) and (2), you may be ordered to remove the sign.
(4) Many rational people will boycott your business in protest
(5) Even more rational people will avoid your business out of fear of a 'scene' occuring
(6) As soon as your sign becomes publicly known, protestors are likely to line up with signs, and block access. You won't be able to sell any product, if any of your potential customers are harassed, or no parking/access is available
(7) You may be sued, because under current commerce law, if you do business with the public, you cannot exclude on the basis of race, and your sign may result in de-facto exclusion even if you do not enforce that.
(8) If you do actually attempt to enforce the sign and remove people based on race,
you're likely to run into all sorts of trouble with the government, based on racial discrimination laws,
you may have police officers dispatched to close your store or to forcibly remove signs
So anyways.... who a business chooses to do business with is a separate question from the
contents of the transaction, so it's nothing like "Common Carrier".
It's more like the question of.... WHO a phone company chooses to do business with.
Well, that's easy, cell phone companies can refuse to provide service to anyone,
for reasons as simple as a delinquent account on their credit report.
If they determine you're a bad person, and they don't want to do business, they can close
your account, and still be a common carrier -- because their choice to do business with you
is separate from the actual data/voice content you sent/received.
With an internet service provider, either the company should be liable for absolutely everything that passes through their network, and they should be free to allow and to block whatever they wish or they can claim "common carrier" status and waive liability, however they are required to allow everyone to use their network.
ISPs are not legally common carriers.
ISPs are not liable for the contents of everything that passes through their network.
However, ISPs are free to allow and block traffic.
ISPs can refuse to provide others access to their network based on criteria they define.
And ISPs can set rules and turn customers off if it is reported to the ISP that they are violated.
For example, ISPs may choose to terminate users whose activities are abusive or constitute excessive usage.
And, frankly, I think this is a good situation.
It allows ISPs to refuse to connect known spammers to their network, even when they apply for service.
It allows ISPs to be picky about what networks they allow to peer with them; which improves ISP stability and financial conditions.
It allows ISPs to turn off spammers. It allows ISPs to remove hacked computers from their network, stop DoS abuse,
and other activities that either unfairly disrupt a user's network connection, or that disrupt the ISP network.
If ISPs became "common carriers", or forced to take on liability the internet would likely collapse,
because SPs could no longer afford to be in business.
Also, a business has a right to refuse service.
Businesses commonly choose to do business with only the most profitable prospective customers,
and setting a high price of service (and discounting favored customers) is a common way of accomplishing that,
but businesses can also refuse service altogether, if the management has moral issues doing business
with the customer, if doing business with the customer will cost them other business, or lead to other
high costs, service is likely to be refused.
More cooling would be okay, but not disassembly of the hard drive
You could replace the drive firmware with a hacked one that changes error detection behavior,
changes the way the buffer/cache is used to optimize the drive for the contest's access pattern,
or kills any power saving features.
The other thing would be changing characteristics of the drive's mounting to reduce
vibration to insanely perfect vibration dampening for maximal mechanical performance.
They BUY the game and pay for anonymizers/vpn's so they can spamm, I'm sure a 2$ sms would not bother them. But I highly doubt that if someone is trying the game for free would pay 2$.
Ok... how about they require the trial players get a non-trial player who has made significant
progress and standing in the game (e.g. "Higher than level 20, played for X months") to vouch for them and "promise" they know them personally and that
the trial player is not just another spammer.
If a player vouches for multiple people who are found to be spamming, their account is deleted
with the spammers'.
It's probably the kids parents' Xbox anyways that they bought for him to use.
Nice "lesson".... steal something, and something of your parents' that they allowed
you to use gets seized, so they have to buy a new one (the latest Xbox model no less).....
I'd say that whatever method you could use to "prove" you're not one, the spammes would use too:)
Eh? How about you enter a real name, street address, phone number, mobile number to sign up for the free account.
You are required to send a SMS text message from your mobile phone to a game company supplied number, for which there is a $2 charge. In response, you receive a SMS with a pin number.
You are then required to call in from your home phone (the caller id will be checked) and type in the PIN number, when prompted.
The spammers will not be interested in paying tiny SMS message fees to get a throwaway account setup.
You can't even have a stable monetary system without government-granted protection of the currency.
You don't need a monetary system to have capitalism. Trade can be done through barter and hard currencies.
The government (or a widely trusted party) can make trade more efficient.
A problem with hard currencies, is the possibility of fraud, for example fake specie.
Forged government notes are easier to detect, since a trusted entity installed effective anti-counterfeiting measures.
You also don't need any government protecting "ownership" to have capitalism.
There is a natural concept of ownership, even in the absence of governments -- when you build something,
or perform work of the hand to create something, grow something, that thing is yours; when you have built and worked on a piece of land first, that is naturally yours.
These concepts of ownership are natural rights that go way beyond any concepts we need governments for.
Governments exist for our convenience, to protect our rights.
It is not essential for capitalism, but it is convenient for capitalism.
A corporation is a legal structure that codifies ownership of property. The corporation owns assets and conducts business; individual shareholders own portions of the total value of that entity. That is what you'd describe as anti-capitalist behavior?
Well, a 'corporation' is a legal recognition of an arrangement people have made.
You can have corporations without governments, or without government recognition;
it just doesn't provide the protections the shareholders might ideally like to have.
You do realise that patents and corporations have nothing to do with capitalism, yes?
They have some things to do with the US implementation of capitalism.
They increase the cost of certain resources that could otherwise be less expensive.
They do have an effect of increasing the profitability of certain businesses.
Also, "capitalists" lobby for these laws. Now it's also true that by nature, capitalism allows companies that arise in the system to lobby for laws that are actually anti-capitalist, for selfish reasons.
Just because capitalism allowed a company to exist, does not necessarily mean it's in their best interest for the system to be pure capitalist; companies that form in a capitalist system will (by nature) try to get laws/regs that benefit them, which by nature, include laws that protect their hegemony and make it harder for a successful competitor to arise and take business.
Why can't it be a troll under the bridge? That would be so much more cool.
Because the troll under the bridge is the government revenue department / tax collector. The Baron is more forthcoming, the rules are simpler, even though they are just as arbitrary/made up to suit the Baron's needs; the real difference between trolls and Barons is who they want to pay, and what they do to you if you don't pay.
Barons bring non-payers before the court and collect their pay in a "civilized way"; the taxes are charged to noblemen.
Trolls charge taxes to the peasants, noblemen get free passage as a professional courtesy.
Trolls are not above using violence, or taking things by brute force, to exact their pay.
If you don't pay the troll under the bridge, you might not come out alive.
If you don't pay the Baron, the worst that will happen is you might be escorted to the dungeon.
The problem here is that Microsoft effectively made Android anything but free, which is exactly the opposite of what Google wanted to achieve with the OEM brand perception of Android as a platform, and that in and of itself is a fantastic business strategy.
It's also a flagrant GPL violation for a device manufacturer to use Android code obtained under the GPL and acquire 'patent licensing' from a third party for redistribution of GPL-covered product.
I guess it depends on were you stand on the issue. It's pretty obvious to me.
Eh? How's that?
OTOH, the original poster argued that nobody died because of the meltdown, thus there was no danger at all, and presumably the government overreacted. It begs the question
I accept the original poster's premise that there were zero deaths directly attributable to the power plant as a data point.
In much the same way as I accept "Deaths caused by using a cell phone: 0"; I don't accept the original poster's conclusion that there was no danger. The number of deaths attributable to something doesn't actually tell you whether it was dangerous or not.
20 years from now, some percentage of the population in the area will get mortal cancer, and we can argue about whether the plant caused it, just as we can argue if talking on cell phones caused it.
There were zero deaths that occured at the 3 mile island accident also, but that doesn't mean it was a safe place to be, and it doesn't mean there was no harm to people there.
And it doesn't mean talking on your cell phone won't hurt you.
Also, I hear using a cell phone while driving, or being a pedestrian near someone driving with a cell phone, is thought to be particularly dangerous...... again, the resulting deaths are not caused by the phone though, or at least, reasoned people can argue about it.
Or are you suggesting that the Japanese government should have handled the accident like the Russians did? (Act like nothing happened, send scores of people to their certain deaths, and lie to the people they do evacuate?)
No, but it was still possible to mount rescue efforts. They had workers at the nuclear plant itself attempting to contain the situation.
Of course they could have rescue workers digging through rubble within the 'evacuation zone', which is even farther from the reactors, monitor their radiation exposure in a similar way.
They could have continued rescue operations and made it as safe (or more safe) as the risks the plant workers/firemen were undergoing
It's not a true implication that their only options were to "attempt no rescue" and to "do what Russia did";
those are two extremes, and they didn't have to pick an absolute position.
If they cancelled rescue efforts, because they were afraid of another tsunami -- it would be the same deal,
deaths of crushed non-rescued people are a result of not being rescued, not the result of another tsunami.
Whether fears were justified or not are an independent fact.
Even if rescue workers stop working and leave the area out of a justified fear, that doesn't really mean the thing they were afraid of
killed the tsunami victims.
So far it's not even clear that there was anyone to be rescued, or that any lives could have been saved/found in time if there were no issue at Fukushima.
What happened was so devastating, that there were unlikely to be survivors anywhere near the tsunami impacted area.
A reaching argument, that theoretically, some people who died of something else might not have died if not for a distraction created by the plant, is hard to swallow.
Next up, we'll be talking about the possibility of elderly people under care/ in bed, who died moving to a different shelter, due to Fukushima evacuation, as victims of the nuclear plant. At least these occurences will be well-documented.
A fail-safe is there to prevent excessive damage in case of failure. It does not mean it's safe from failing, it means that when it fails it does so in a safe, controlled way.
Not just that.... a 'fail safe' systems means; the system is designed, so that:
(1) the modes of failure are anticipated, and the system is designed so that danger during failure is mitigated, for example, bad things that could happen during failure are prevented, and
(2) that after complete failure, the system is designed so that it inherently falls into a 'safe state'; that is, the system 'fails safe'. For example, if you have an electronic lock that fails, 'fail safe' would mean either that in case the device malfunctions or power is lost, it fails into a safe state.... depending on the placement of the device 'safe state' will be either locked or unlocked.
Usually an electronic lock that fails will fail into an unlocked state; this is a fail safe, since it ensures people can still escape the building during an emergency. Sometimes in a highly sensitive area, it will fail into a locked state, and a manual override will be provided.
A nuclear reactor with a good design and 'fail-safes' should fall into a safe state, if all power lost, and all equipment on site (generators, pumps, etc) all fail to function.
Obviously Fukushima did not have true working fail safes, and the reactor failed into an unsafe state, where continuous operation of systems that had already failed was required, or the reactor would inherently enter an unsafe state (meltdown), rather than inherently enter a safe state (total shutdown and suppression).
You're forgetting that the nuclear accident seriously hampered search and rescue efforts within the evacuation zone.
In other words: the Fukushima reactor has not killed anyone, but the government's response to the problems at Fukushima lead to an evacuation, and more people who were brought to the verge of death due to being buried in Tsunami debris died than might have died if the government reacted differently.
Sorry... neither the reactor nor nuclear power killed those folks; all their injuries were caused by the Tsunami.
Their death was certain unless they received timely assistance, and the chaos created in the wake of the Tsunami and the poor government response caused them to not receive any assistance.
Slashdot Mirror
Nor can you enter a private building where management has decided to hire security and implement metal detectors, without authorization.
Unless you present at the door and security just lets you in, believing you belong there, or you gave them some legitimate-sounding explanation of why you want to enter....
That may put you in a better position -- once the security guard lets you in, the owner/employees can no longer claim you were trespassing; since the guard allowed you in, you have essentially been invited/authorized.
If you just walk into a private building uninvited, with no security guard, with no permission or sign inviting you in, you're breaking the law anyways.
Having a 'metal detector' and guard at the door is not what makes trespassing a crime.
At the start of their investigation, the Secret Service had to ensure it was not staging for a larger attack. In this case someone was using Apple's computers but they didn't know who.
Wait... a few Apple display model computers in two stores count as Financial/Critical Infrastructure? Since when?
And how many times has Microsoft been sued for it?
Dunno... I couldn't find any filings on that subject; I assume Microsoft's never been sued over it, yet, so that's probably a pretty good record.
since they're the ones whose terms of service were violated by the malicious edits
You assume the edits were malicious, and they weren't actually removing a relatively unknown non-notable Micropayments company from a list of 'notable micropayment companies'
Or claiming such in good faith
The Wiki was working as it should be; if the company actually was notable, there should have been no problem simply reverting the edit.
Sounds like an attempt to use the courts to make an end-run around Wikipedia policy and editor consensus
if any evidence can be found to show that VISA/MC reacted at the request of the US Government, the violation becomes pretty straightforward. The government cannot suppress free speech, either directly or by employing the credit card companies as agents to do its bidding.
I will agree with that. If the government, or any government representatives such as elected officials (president, senator, house member), or staff, DoJ worker, etc, pressured MC or Visa to block payments based on a political message, then there would be a clear violation.
And it would be the government violating the law, not necessarily MC/Visa, who merely executed illegal actions on their behalf, possibly in good faith, that the government would not order to do something the government was not allowed to do.
In civilized world (doesnt include america) corporations HAVE to pay interns at least minimum wage.
In the US, corporations do HAVE to pay interns at least minimum wage; there is one special exception that applies to internships solely for personal educational/training purposes of the student, and there are strict standards to be met for that exception to apply, see US Department of Labor Fact Sheet 71:
Actually, the fix was the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. So, by definition, it was constitutional (baring any problems with the amendment process).
We are discussing anti-discrimination and affirmative action laws, specifically. The 13th amendment doesn't have anything to do with discriminatory business practices; the 13th amendment forbids slavery. Now it is a true historical fact, that in North America slavery became discriminatory, as indentured servitude had been replaced with chattel slavery, resulting in all slaves being African or Native Americans.
Enslavement based on race was only one very extreme type of discrimination however.
So the 13th amendment addressed only that one specific problem. But the racial discrimination went way beyond slavery, evidenced by the fact it continued even after the 13th amendment was passed, well into the 60s.
It's not only blocking some customers, but blocking whole industries from its service and essentially trying to enforce morals via its payment service.
Well, I think many of these are for their own protection, take h for example: (h) ammunition, firearms, or certain firearm parts or accessories, or (i) ,certain weapons or knives regulated under applicable law
If they allow ammunition/firearm transactions to be processed, there is a fact that firearms are often used in the commission of crimes -- that means they are likely to get a lot of demands from law enforcement for records. These kinds of requests are a burden, and incur expenses that cannot be passed on to law enforcement, but must be complied with.
So they could either charge higher fees, or they could refuse the transactions.... the choice of having (h) in the agreement, probably benefits most PayPal users, who aren't in the gun business.
(g) items are similarly risky. Participating in the sale of sexually oriented services are likely to be illegal, and result in more forced records discovery by law enforcement.
(e) and (f) are of course items specifically prohibited by law, that the customer's not allowed to deal in.
(d) is likely to result in law enforcement requests / discovery for lawsuits as well. Paypal can charge for civil compliance with a subpoena, but they may make a conscious decision of specifically wishing to avoid that. They probably do not wish the PayPal name associated with "racial" / "hate" materials, and this is about branding.
(a), (b), and (c) are all items that are illegal to trade, and PayPal can't have a policy of allowing without taking on huge risks themselves, they must stop doing business with someone and report it to authorities, if it comes to their attention a transaction fits under those.
This is why paper money is printed by the government and why digital money should be too. It doesn't make sense to outsource economic infrastructure to the private sector. Having to pay a fee to use money is like being required to pay a fee for walking down the street. Why we accept this treatment online and hasn't come up with a public government controlled standard for digital currency transactions is beyond me.
I would think long and hard before I said "I wan't the government handling digital currency transactions"; that means the government would have to build the infrastructure at cost, they'd essentially be a monopoly, then.
The payment card industry works so well because there is so much profit to be made, they're able to justify the expenditures required to keep it highly available, and keep it secure. I'm not so sure the government wouldn't botch that up.
More importantly.... if the government processed every digital currency transaction, there would be no privacy -- you can bet, the contents of every single transaction would be immediately available for review by law enforcement, with all information about both parties to the xaction.
At least with the payment card companies, we know there's a limiting factor -- the company's own costs of sharing information are a deterrant, unless the gov't pays them handsomely.
these are not 'just companies'. they ARE the financial infrastructure, in very many ways.
the water company can't decide not to serve you. they can't ban you. this is essentially the same. once things are at this scale (bastardcard included) they HAVE to be impartial and offer services to all customers.
Mastercard refusing to process payments for you is not like having the water turned off. It is more like FedEx or UPS decides to blacklist you, and inform you that they will no longer accept any package to be sent from your address.
Yes, you might have just lost one of your convenient options for delivering your products, but nothing stops you from using independent freight companies or using an alternative like DHL.
As large as they are, they are not a municipal monopoly. Payment cards are not the financial infrastructure. Mastercard is a payment card company, not SWIFT, and there are alternatives available to every service Mastercard provides. Mastercard's service is not critical to exchange payments -- it is just a convenient method of conducting transactions.
For example, Visa, AMEX, ACH, EFT/ wire transfers, PayPal eCheck, money orders, paper cheques, AmazonPayments, or WU are a few alternatives to MC.
"Financial infrastructure companies" also commonly deny services to customers, usually because the bank decides the credit score is too low, or insufficient history, to issue a LOC and grant them a plastiq payment card.
Sure, if I opened a bar and posted a sign saying "Black people not allowed", everyone who is enraged should just stfu and go to a different bar instead. Right?
Well, in fundamental principal, yes, you should be able to post the sign, as despicable and reprehensible as that is, because, while the government can regulate commerce, nobody can force you to do business, and there is a constitutionally protected right to be stupid.
In practice, NO, because race and skin color are special. Better go find a better example; race and gender discrimination are so special and privileged that it is a 'special case', they are blocked/unacceptable in a manner more strongly than almost any other type of business decision.
It's a sensitive issue, so no, you can't do that, not without serious reprisal from the public, including vigilantes, government officials, and your suppliers/vendors are likely to cut you off should they learn of this. Good luck running a bar, if the liquor companies refuse to ship you anything or allow you to place orders. See, this cuts both ways; if you use a "no black people" sign, your suppliers can send you a letter that says "No bars that refuse blacks may order products from us".
Also, local government can discriminate against your bar in the same way -- by revoking the liquor license, so you better be in a place and doing a business that doesn't require any licenses to operate.
Due to events from American history, there was racial discrimination in the past, it was widespread, and needed to be stopped for the good of society, so special laws (constitutional or not) were put into place to ban it.
And public reaction has shifted strongly to the opposite position -- that is, to say public opinion is highly anti-discriminatory; even if you're not actually discriminatory, the mere perception that you are, can ruin you, better err on the side of affirmatively favoring black people in your bar, if you really want to be safe.
I wouldn't recommend posting such an extreme sign, unless your place is a 'poster' or some sort of reenactment/museum, and the sign is showing what an actual storefront looked like lin the 1950s.
There is a constitutionally protected right to freedom of speech, which enables you to post just about any sign you want on your private property, possibly subject to government regulations, when it is visible to the public, about what size/position/whether you can post any sign at all, but the content of messages you send are constitutionally protected, especially if they are intended to express a political message.
In reality, however, you cannot do that, because (1) enraged people are likely to vandalize your business, even if the sign's sole purpose is to express a political message (and not to physically refuse anyone service)
(2) the contents of the sign is likely to result in a disturbance of the peace, when people the sign applies to show up and are excessively angered
(3) because of (1) and (2), you may be ordered to remove the sign.
(4) Many rational people will boycott your business in protest
(5) Even more rational people will avoid your business out of fear of a 'scene' occuring
(6) As soon as your sign becomes publicly known, protestors are likely to line up with signs, and block access. You won't be able to sell any product, if any of your potential customers are harassed, or no parking/access is available
(7) You may be sued, because under current commerce law, if you do business with the public, you cannot exclude on the basis of race, and your sign may result in de-facto exclusion even if you do not enforce that.
(8) If you do actually attempt to enforce the sign and remove people based on race, you're likely to run into all sorts of trouble with the government, based on racial discrimination laws, you may have police officers dispatched to close your store or to forcibly remove signs
So anyways.... who a business chooses to do business with is a separate question from the contents of the transaction, so it's nothing like "Common Carrier". It's more like the question of.... WHO a phone company chooses to do business with. Well, that's easy, cell phone companies can refuse to provide service to anyone, for reasons as simple as a delinquent account on their credit report. If they determine you're a bad person, and they don't want to do business, they can close your account, and still be a common carrier -- because their choice to do business with you is separate from the actual data/voice content you sent/received.
With an internet service provider, either the company should be liable for absolutely everything that passes through their network, and they should be free to allow and to block whatever they wish or they can claim "common carrier" status and waive liability, however they are required to allow everyone to use their network.
ISPs are not legally common carriers.
ISPs are not liable for the contents of everything that passes through their network.
However, ISPs are free to allow and block traffic. ISPs can refuse to provide others access to their network based on criteria they define.
And ISPs can set rules and turn customers off if it is reported to the ISP that they are violated. For example, ISPs may choose to terminate users whose activities are abusive or constitute excessive usage.
And, frankly, I think this is a good situation. It allows ISPs to refuse to connect known spammers to their network, even when they apply for service. It allows ISPs to be picky about what networks they allow to peer with them; which improves ISP stability and financial conditions.
It allows ISPs to turn off spammers. It allows ISPs to remove hacked computers from their network, stop DoS abuse, and other activities that either unfairly disrupt a user's network connection, or that disrupt the ISP network.
If ISPs became "common carriers", or forced to take on liability the internet would likely collapse, because SPs could no longer afford to be in business.
Also, a business has a right to refuse service. Businesses commonly choose to do business with only the most profitable prospective customers, and setting a high price of service (and discounting favored customers) is a common way of accomplishing that, but businesses can also refuse service altogether, if the management has moral issues doing business with the customer, if doing business with the customer will cost them other business, or lead to other high costs, service is likely to be refused.
More cooling would be okay, but not disassembly of the hard drive
You could replace the drive firmware with a hacked one that changes error detection behavior, changes the way the buffer/cache is used to optimize the drive for the contest's access pattern, or kills any power saving features.
The other thing would be changing characteristics of the drive's mounting to reduce vibration to insanely perfect vibration dampening for maximal mechanical performance.
They BUY the game and pay for anonymizers/vpn's so they can spamm, I'm sure a 2$ sms would not bother them. But I highly doubt that if someone is trying the game for free would pay 2$.
Ok... how about they require the trial players get a non-trial player who has made significant progress and standing in the game (e.g. "Higher than level 20, played for X months") to vouch for them and "promise" they know them personally and that the trial player is not just another spammer.
If a player vouches for multiple people who are found to be spamming, their account is deleted with the spammers'.
. And it's not like it's gone forever, he will get it back if he shows up to court.
You know what would be 'gone forever'?
His save game files. And any artistic or other creative work or game progress saved to the console's memory. (He he....<eg>)
It's probably the kids parents' Xbox anyways that they bought for him to use. Nice "lesson".... steal something, and something of your parents' that they allowed you to use gets seized, so they have to buy a new one (the latest Xbox model no less) .....
I'd say that whatever method you could use to "prove" you're not one, the spammes would use too :)
Eh? How about you enter a real name, street address, phone number, mobile number to sign up for the free account.
You are required to send a SMS text message from your mobile phone to a game company supplied number, for which there is a $2 charge. In response, you receive a SMS with a pin number.
You are then required to call in from your home phone (the caller id will be checked) and type in the PIN number, when prompted.
The spammers will not be interested in paying tiny SMS message fees to get a throwaway account setup.
You can't even have a stable monetary system without government-granted protection of the currency.
You don't need a monetary system to have capitalism. Trade can be done through barter and hard currencies. The government (or a widely trusted party) can make trade more efficient.
A problem with hard currencies, is the possibility of fraud, for example fake specie. Forged government notes are easier to detect, since a trusted entity installed effective anti-counterfeiting measures.
You also don't need any government protecting "ownership" to have capitalism. There is a natural concept of ownership, even in the absence of governments -- when you build something, or perform work of the hand to create something, grow something, that thing is yours; when you have built and worked on a piece of land first, that is naturally yours.
These concepts of ownership are natural rights that go way beyond any concepts we need governments for. Governments exist for our convenience, to protect our rights. It is not essential for capitalism, but it is convenient for capitalism.
A corporation is a legal structure that codifies ownership of property. The corporation owns assets and conducts business; individual shareholders own portions of the total value of that entity. That is what you'd describe as anti-capitalist behavior?
Well, a 'corporation' is a legal recognition of an arrangement people have made. You can have corporations without governments, or without government recognition; it just doesn't provide the protections the shareholders might ideally like to have.
You do realise that patents and corporations have nothing to do with capitalism, yes?
They have some things to do with the US implementation of capitalism. They increase the cost of certain resources that could otherwise be less expensive.
They do have an effect of increasing the profitability of certain businesses.
Also, "capitalists" lobby for these laws. Now it's also true that by nature, capitalism allows companies that arise in the system to lobby for laws that are actually anti-capitalist, for selfish reasons.
Just because capitalism allowed a company to exist, does not necessarily mean it's in their best interest for the system to be pure capitalist; companies that form in a capitalist system will (by nature) try to get laws/regs that benefit them, which by nature, include laws that protect their hegemony and make it harder for a successful competitor to arise and take business.
Why can't it be a troll under the bridge? That would be so much more cool.
Because the troll under the bridge is the government revenue department / tax collector. The Baron is more forthcoming, the rules are simpler, even though they are just as arbitrary/made up to suit the Baron's needs; the real difference between trolls and Barons is who they want to pay, and what they do to you if you don't pay.
Barons bring non-payers before the court and collect their pay in a "civilized way"; the taxes are charged to noblemen.
Trolls charge taxes to the peasants, noblemen get free passage as a professional courtesy.
Trolls are not above using violence, or taking things by brute force, to exact their pay. If you don't pay the troll under the bridge, you might not come out alive. If you don't pay the Baron, the worst that will happen is you might be escorted to the dungeon.
The problem here is that Microsoft effectively made Android anything but free, which is exactly the opposite of what Google wanted to achieve with the OEM brand perception of Android as a platform, and that in and of itself is a fantastic business strategy.
It's also a flagrant GPL violation for a device manufacturer to use Android code obtained under the GPL and acquire 'patent licensing' from a third party for redistribution of GPL-covered product.
I guess it depends on were you stand on the issue. It's pretty obvious to me.
Eh? How's that?
OTOH, the original poster argued that nobody died because of the meltdown, thus there was no danger at all, and presumably the government overreacted. It begs the question
I accept the original poster's premise that there were zero deaths directly attributable to the power plant as a data point. In much the same way as I accept "Deaths caused by using a cell phone: 0"; I don't accept the original poster's conclusion that there was no danger. The number of deaths attributable to something doesn't actually tell you whether it was dangerous or not.
20 years from now, some percentage of the population in the area will get mortal cancer, and we can argue about whether the plant caused it, just as we can argue if talking on cell phones caused it.
There were zero deaths that occured at the 3 mile island accident also, but that doesn't mean it was a safe place to be, and it doesn't mean there was no harm to people there.
And it doesn't mean talking on your cell phone won't hurt you.
Also, I hear using a cell phone while driving, or being a pedestrian near someone driving with a cell phone, is thought to be particularly dangerous...... again, the resulting deaths are not caused by the phone though, or at least, reasoned people can argue about it.
Or are you suggesting that the Japanese government should have handled the accident like the Russians did? (Act like nothing happened, send scores of people to their certain deaths, and lie to the people they do evacuate?)
No, but it was still possible to mount rescue efforts. They had workers at the nuclear plant itself attempting to contain the situation. Of course they could have rescue workers digging through rubble within the 'evacuation zone', which is even farther from the reactors, monitor their radiation exposure in a similar way.
They could have continued rescue operations and made it as safe (or more safe) as the risks the plant workers/firemen were undergoing
It's not a true implication that their only options were to "attempt no rescue" and to "do what Russia did"; those are two extremes, and they didn't have to pick an absolute position.
If they cancelled rescue efforts, because they were afraid of another tsunami -- it would be the same deal, deaths of crushed non-rescued people are a result of not being rescued, not the result of another tsunami.
Whether fears were justified or not are an independent fact. Even if rescue workers stop working and leave the area out of a justified fear, that doesn't really mean the thing they were afraid of killed the tsunami victims.
So far it's not even clear that there was anyone to be rescued, or that any lives could have been saved/found in time if there were no issue at Fukushima. What happened was so devastating, that there were unlikely to be survivors anywhere near the tsunami impacted area.
A reaching argument, that theoretically, some people who died of something else might not have died if not for a distraction created by the plant, is hard to swallow.
Next up, we'll be talking about the possibility of elderly people under care/ in bed, who died moving to a different shelter, due to Fukushima evacuation, as victims of the nuclear plant. At least these occurences will be well-documented.
A fail-safe is there to prevent excessive damage in case of failure. It does not mean it's safe from failing, it means that when it fails it does so in a safe, controlled way.
Not just that.... a 'fail safe' systems means; the system is designed, so that:
(1) the modes of failure are anticipated, and the system is designed so that danger during failure is mitigated, for example, bad things that could happen during failure are prevented, and
(2) that after complete failure, the system is designed so that it inherently falls into a 'safe state'; that is, the system 'fails safe'. For example, if you have an electronic lock that fails, 'fail safe' would mean either that in case the device malfunctions or power is lost, it fails into a safe state.... depending on the placement of the device 'safe state' will be either locked or unlocked.
Usually an electronic lock that fails will fail into an unlocked state; this is a fail safe, since it ensures people can still escape the building during an emergency. Sometimes in a highly sensitive area, it will fail into a locked state, and a manual override will be provided.
A nuclear reactor with a good design and 'fail-safes' should fall into a safe state, if all power lost, and all equipment on site (generators, pumps, etc) all fail to function.
Obviously Fukushima did not have true working fail safes, and the reactor failed into an unsafe state, where continuous operation of systems that had already failed was required, or the reactor would inherently enter an unsafe state (meltdown), rather than inherently enter a safe state (total shutdown and suppression).
You're forgetting that the nuclear accident seriously hampered search and rescue efforts within the evacuation zone.
In other words: the Fukushima reactor has not killed anyone, but the government's response to the problems at Fukushima lead to an evacuation, and more people who were brought to the verge of death due to being buried in Tsunami debris died than might have died if the government reacted differently.
Sorry... neither the reactor nor nuclear power killed those folks; all their injuries were caused by the Tsunami. Their death was certain unless they received timely assistance, and the chaos created in the wake of the Tsunami and the poor government response caused them to not receive any assistance.