Yes they do, and it's pretty much possible, and just as stupid as you imply. What it means is that we can expect government keys and government certs and compromises by and of the government implementing stupid things like this.
We should be cheering for this. When people in power insist on something stupid, sometimes the best you can hope for is an example of bad things that happen when stupid people get their way. If we in the US are very, very, very lucky, maybe Santa will give us bad Russian consequences to point to in our attempts to keep our own government officials from being just as stupid.
What I'd like is a legal requirement to submit software code and reproducible compiling requirements to the library of congress in order to be sold, even if a service. There would be a five year waiting period after the end of support before the code and requirements would become public domain.
I'd like to see the same basic idea, specs and designs would be submitted to the library of congress with the same basic guarantee, if it becomes unsupported for a period of five years, it becomes public domain.
The problem with these ideas is that the definition of supported would have to be somewhat beefed up since Windows 3.1 could still be "supported" just without any bug fixes or security updates or available staff to handle issues. Ditto for the Model-T. The (perhaps impossible) trick would be setting up clauses that allow traditional copyright and patents and at the same time defining support as something that fixes discovered problems.
Sort of like illegal drug dealing, prostitution and assassination? Granted they exist because they provide a service people are willing to pay for. However, they're limited in number and difficult to do due to the nature of governmental opposition.
Many potentially profitable businesses don't exist because society doesn't give permission for them. It sure seems like they do need "society's permission" since laws are created by society to prevent actions and businesses the society doesn't approve of. Many times, this is actually a good thing.
Consider net neutrality. Most posters here seem to be in favor legislation forcing companies to act against their own profit interests in favor of something benefiting the greater good of the society that creates the rules.
No, because we're treating your copy of digital information as a rental. Just as when you rent a car, you can't transfer that rental to someone else. We have to treat digital data as rentals because buying and selling has never been possible on the scale the internet brings.
Take the movie Ant Man. Lets say 100 people watch it after purchasing the rights for $50 each. That's more than the studios would have gotten from those initial viewers, but those 100 people can sell their rights to someone else two hours later for $49 each. That's a good deal for the first 100 people because they get to watch the movie for $1. But then the next group willing to pay $1 does the same thing and the studio makes no money. How many times does the cycle need to repeat before the studio has lost all the potential to sell a viewing? At 50 repetitions the studio has made only $2 per person and it's free for passing on at that point.
This whole topic of rights to prohibit possession of digital media bothers me. Numbers (because digital data is a string of 0s and 1s) cannot be possessed except by certain people because we've decided that some numbers, if arranged in ways similar to other numbers are rightfully the property of someone else. Not only that, we say that sometimes, if you get consent or follow rules few people understand, you can have a particular number for a limited time but cannot let anyone else have a copy of that number or make a copy of the number for yourself, or even make a similar arrangement of numbers after the period you've been approved for.
Interestingly this makes irrational numbers illegal since they contain the numbers (all the numbers) you're not allowed to have a copy of.
It makes me wonder. What if I copyright a tiny black and white drawing which can be represented by a relatively small number. Then I sue a mathematician who has printed out or otherwise disseminated enough of Pi that it includes my number. Could we get a judge to rule that either having Pi without my permission is illegal, or alternatively that possession and dissemination of numbers can't be illegal?
If Barney didn't think you were driving safely he'd throw you in the drunk tank. Complain? That's a nightstick. Try to get a court hearing? That's a nightstick and maybe some stairs.
That's unless you were in a position where you could control Barney's rise or fall. Governors and mayors would never be able to get so drunk or high as to actually face repercussions. People with a few hundred bucks in their pocket would go on their way after donating to the police fund, etc.
That's why civilized societies include courts and evidence as part of the legal system. Otherwise Barney Fife *is* the law.
This post uses Barney Fife as the quintessential clueless cop, but Barney was well meaning and mostly honest, which is a far cry from the bad cops that we should worry about. Also, RIP Don Knotts, and thanks for the memories.
Don't forget their dependence on heating lamps and trash cans too.
The actual food cost is low compared to everything else, so what can't be sold while appealing gets trashed (instead of microwaved.) The amount of trashed food is pretty staggering.
But that's what you get when you try to give people what they want. We want food right now and we want it to be freshly prepared. That's only possible if you're constantly preparing food that may not be wanted.
I haven't had fast food in... days. I think the last fast food I had was a McDonald's breakfast combo #5 with bacon, eggs and cheese on a biscuit with a hashbrown and orange juice. It seems so long ago; I don't know how long I can resist So . much . grease.
Essentially, machines will fly spores, seeds and embryos (or just genetic blueprints) to a habitable planet, do some basic terraforming then raise up some baby humans and teach them how to spread themselves and interact with the machines.
I expect humans to eventually be the virus that gets this sector of the galaxy wiped out.
Capitalist systems, like others, function or fail based in part on scale. Most people are decent and don't need a threat of force to behave properly. Most small groups with a capitalist system work fine.
For those that have malicious citizens, making it legal to shoot someone stealing from you goes a long way toward stopping crime.
Of course, there will always be smart criminals who get away with stealing and it's easier in an unregulated environment. And, of course, people with guns and an excuse will use both more in an environment where that's acceptable.
Everything has trade offs. You want a large nation capable of self defense in a world with nukes and bombers and intercontinental missiles? Well, that means you can't have a nation small enough for pure capitalism or pure socialism to work. Tyranny might be another option, but it's tricky to get a good tyrant and even if you do, killing tyrants is a long standing tradition of humanity. With even the best of tyrants, you're just trading quality of leadership for span of leadership.
"They're a lot like the ultra-naive loony-left people who think that everyone is just going to behave and play nice because it's human nature, if only you just reason with them and plead with them. It's not."
I'm a Libertarian and I don't think human nature is all that good all the time. Maybe I'm not a true Scotsman...er, Libertarian. (I only assume I am based on my voting record. Well that and multiple attempts to see what ideology most closely matches my beliefs.)
Maybe you meant Communists? I haven't had much luck finding one well versed on philosophy who was willing to explain their beliefs to me. However, they're the ones who believe that everyone will work together in the shared best interest without market or government intervention. Oddly, they still seem to think governments are important and that the solution to problems is more governmental power, but hey, I haven't gotten that explained to me yet, so maybe I'm just missing the obvious logical explanation.
I think it's best in most cases to let people look out for their own interests instead of making everything the job of government. However, I do still firmly believe government has an important role in civilized society.
Except my local Wendy's doesn't fill the drink, they give you an empty cup. Then you walk over to a machine where you have to press your own buttons so you can get root beer flavored Sprite even though you don't want that.
I'd like to add that I cannot order a Sprite anywhere. It's on the menus but anyone who is asked for it will try to add fries and then ask you what you want to drink, even if that's what you were answering. Now I always order 7-Up like someone illiterate, but it works because they always ask if Sprite is okay.
Heaven help you if you ever have something wrong on a receipt! Asking most fast food people to do basic addition is practically impossible. Thank goodness they don't have to learn to count change.
So the basic job of the front counter line is to make people feel comfortable with the ordering process and to press buttons, but consumers are getting more and more comfortable pressing their own buttons.
Of course the testing and implementation will suck in the first areas this rolls out, but it will smooth the way and lower the costs for everywhere else. That means that the places where politicians try to raise wages will be the places where consumers and businesses and would-be employees all suffer the most.
Thank you California and New York for taking that hit for the rest of us!
After this is rolled out, bugs will get fixed and costs will go down and, when other places start implementing this, it will be smoother for everyone. It will still displace the minimum wage workers when it comes to our non-meddling political realm, but for us it will be smoother and our workers won't be displaced as rapidly. That means that our consumers will be happier and our businesses will be happier and our minimum wage workers will have a more stable job market.
I like this. We have FDA inspectors, fire marshals, bank examiners and so many other people who have the jobs of keeping the public safe. How do we not have security testers with that job?
If you're asking, you aren't going to like the answer, but I'll try anyway.
Like many/.'ers I do support for family. Guess which laptops and computers get screwed up? Windows of course. If I don't want to have to fix stuff on a regular basis, I rule Windows out immediately. Macs seem a bit pricey but I could get over that, the problem I have is that typically people find it hard to use at first, which for some of my family translates to forever. (One of the people I support gets quite upset if Internet Explorer isn't on the page he left it on.)
You know what doesn't get screwed up? Chromebooks. I can hand one to a nine year old niece or to her grandmother and they'll be able to do everything they want and it won't be messed up when they hand it back. We have two that we keep on hand for just that sort of purpose. They're both cheap and a few years old, and they still keep up with all that their target audience asks of them.
At this price though, this wouldn't be for my niece or her grandmother. This would be a Chromebook for me. I'm a veteran of OSs ranging from Xenix to Microsoft Server 2012, so I feel comfortable with pretty much whatever. About the only question that matters to me when I pick an OS for my own use is how much effort it will require.
In years past, I would compile my own custom kernel and tweak optimizations for all the software I ran which made me a big fan of Gentoo and FreeBSD, and I'd spend hours tweaking Blackbox. These days? I take the easy and fast route for most things. My current desktop dual boots Windows 10 and Mint and most of my servers run CentOS. If I'm working, I'm either on a remote command line or in a remote desktop, so what good does Windows or Linux or Mac on the laptop do for me? The only thing I ask of my local computer most of the time is that it render web pages well and not give me grief over streaming videos when I'm taking downtime.
So this is a tempting laptop for me. It would do everything I need in a snappy fashion, including running video on my real displays and take zero maintenance. That's what makes Chromebooks most appealing, they don't take effort. Plus, with this higher level of hardware, if I ever decided I needed something else, I'd just put Linux or BSD on it and it'd be as good for the money as most of the alternatives I might have purchased.
Thank you, I've been trying to figure out what Mr. Yueting meant by "Apple only has individual apps."
I have been assuming it was just a matter of phrasing that I was stumbling over. I take it, from your comment, that it would be fair to rephrase that comment as "Apple doesn't have an app that will try to do everything for you."
I could see the logic if we had strong AI actually working. I'd love to be able to tell my phone to do the things I want and have it just work. With strong AI, it would be like having a butler handle your phone for you. There would be no need to separate the functions into apps since the butler would do everything.
Short of strong AI, I guess it would be possible to have something like a chromebook, where all the functionality comes from web pages. Possible perhaps, but experience tells me that most people prefer the responsiveness of locally installed applications.
When I browse slashdot, I like it to remember what level I choose last. It isn't strictly necessary for the site to work but it works better with the cookie to retain that information.
the wormhole stability was measured as lasting only.10717 seconds then to move a car 4.216 meters long (A DeLorean) through the wormhole before it closes you would need to be moving at 39.3395 meters per second or 88 MPH.
e) The main problem with the device is that this person described a device without applying/explaining any theory. It's rare to find something that works very unobviously like this simply on a hunch especially with the millions of crackpots out there describing various devices for 'free energy'.
Initially I dismissed this as a free energy hoax, but it kept coming back to life. Now I'm pretty sure it came about from an Illuminati agreement with an extraterrestrial:
Okay, we'll make the "You're fired" guy a legitimate presidential candidate for your Earth show if you give us a reactionless drive.
Thanks. I was battling with myself over whether to make those exact points. I dislike the man, but the popular accusations are almost always made in ignorance.
"My dream is to live in a nation where we can hate someone, not based on the color of their skin or which party they are associated with, but based on their words and actions." - intentionally misquoting a better man
My view is pretty US centric, so while there may be examples, none leap to mind. However, this law does give fetuses the same protection as a birthed baby. It's an interesting topic if you can keep politics and personal biases at bay.
Please note however, that I said "think of as" which means that it is an opinion held by people, not a position supported by legislative action.
Abortions are not a right, never were: have been illegal for the past more than 100 years,...
I'm sure you have some lame pseudo-legal argument that you think proves that statement, but you're wrong.
I'm not certain, but I'd guess that the argument is that murder is illegal. It's not uncommon for people to think of abortions as murder and those who see it that way are unlikely to buy the argument that embryos/zygotes/fetuses aren't people. Murder was illegal in the days of American slavery, but law enforcement authorities didn't think of slaves as people, so many murders weren't prosecuted. (By "murder" I mean the traditional common language definition, not the legal definition which is somewhat more debatable.)
Whatever your argument is, it's not something people are actually prosecuted under. Some abortions are legal. If they weren't, all the abortion clinics would have been closed down.
Sorry, but that argument just isn't logical. For example, recreational use of marijuana is still illegal under federal law. The fact that it is rarely prosecuted in the states with differing laws doesn't mean it isn't illegal or that the federal government can't decide to prosecute based on the federal laws. Failure to prosecute an illegal act doesn't make it legal. There are lists all over the internet of silly things that are technically illegal that nobody is interested in prosecuting. If abortions weren't legal then there's a good chance states would still be refusing to prosecute, just like is happening now with the marijuana laws.
Your stronger argument would be to say that whatever the SCOTUS says is a "right" is, by very definition, legal. If the body that determines what law means says that it's okay to shoot your neighbor if your neighbor is bald, then it's legal by definition. If there are two laws where one says shooting people is illegal, and the other says shooting bald people is legal, then the more recent law is probably the one that has bearing. Your argument should be: Saying abortion is illegal is either demonstrating a misunderstanding of how the law works or arguing semantics. Either way, as a pragmatist, I will say that the law is whatever the entity controlling the army says it is.
The people that want to use the legal system to stop abortions are finding other ways.
Um, right? Isn't that how a society of law works? People who want something one way try to get laws and popular opinion to support while those who want it a different way try to get laws and popular opinion to oppose it. There's nothing immoral about trying to get the law to work more like you think it should. That's what democracies are supposed to support. People who don't are either criminals or tyrants. The recent changes in how the law affects marriage is a good example. There were laws for and against allowing different types of unions to be considered marriages. Eventually the conflicting laws and rulings advanced to the final decision in support of something that was never mentioned in the document that was cited as the authority. That's how our legal system works and many would argue that's a good thing. (You might raise the reasonable question of whether it *should* work that way or not, but I defer with the same pragmatist viewpoint expressed previously.)
They do things like passing the recent Texas law that required that abortions only be done in facilities that have more surgical capabilities than is required for other more complex surgical procedures.
The SCOTUS has allowed states to regulate abortion differently from other procedures. The SCOTUS has also said that states may not impose an "undue burden" on the constitutional right to an abortion. (Interestingly, they haven't found things like a 24 hour waiting period or parental consent to be an undue burden.) Naturally those people who oppose abortions should tr
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We're working on building one... not sure that it will care about our misery though.
Yes they do, and it's pretty much possible, and just as stupid as you imply. What it means is that we can expect government keys and government certs and compromises by and of the government implementing stupid things like this.
We should be cheering for this. When people in power insist on something stupid, sometimes the best you can hope for is an example of bad things that happen when stupid people get their way. If we in the US are very, very, very lucky, maybe Santa will give us bad Russian consequences to point to in our attempts to keep our own government officials from being just as stupid.
That's funny!
What I'd like is a legal requirement to submit software code and reproducible compiling requirements to the library of congress in order to be sold, even if a service. There would be a five year waiting period after the end of support before the code and requirements would become public domain.
I'd like to see the same basic idea, specs and designs would be submitted to the library of congress with the same basic guarantee, if it becomes unsupported for a period of five years, it becomes public domain.
The problem with these ideas is that the definition of supported would have to be somewhat beefed up since Windows 3.1 could still be "supported" just without any bug fixes or security updates or available staff to handle issues. Ditto for the Model-T. The (perhaps impossible) trick would be setting up clauses that allow traditional copyright and patents and at the same time defining support as something that fixes discovered problems.
You know that's a really good point. It's possible now, but slooooow and complicated for the average consumer.
Sort of like illegal drug dealing, prostitution and assassination? Granted they exist because they provide a service people are willing to pay for. However, they're limited in number and difficult to do due to the nature of governmental opposition.
Many potentially profitable businesses don't exist because society doesn't give permission for them. It sure seems like they do need "society's permission" since laws are created by society to prevent actions and businesses the society doesn't approve of. Many times, this is actually a good thing.
Consider net neutrality. Most posters here seem to be in favor legislation forcing companies to act against their own profit interests in favor of something benefiting the greater good of the society that creates the rules.
This coming from an avowed libertarian.
No, because we're treating your copy of digital information as a rental. Just as when you rent a car, you can't transfer that rental to someone else. We have to treat digital data as rentals because buying and selling has never been possible on the scale the internet brings.
Take the movie Ant Man. Lets say 100 people watch it after purchasing the rights for $50 each. That's more than the studios would have gotten from those initial viewers, but those 100 people can sell their rights to someone else two hours later for $49 each. That's a good deal for the first 100 people because they get to watch the movie for $1. But then the next group willing to pay $1 does the same thing and the studio makes no money. How many times does the cycle need to repeat before the studio has lost all the potential to sell a viewing? At 50 repetitions the studio has made only $2 per person and it's free for passing on at that point.
This whole topic of rights to prohibit possession of digital media bothers me. Numbers (because digital data is a string of 0s and 1s) cannot be possessed except by certain people because we've decided that some numbers, if arranged in ways similar to other numbers are rightfully the property of someone else. Not only that, we say that sometimes, if you get consent or follow rules few people understand, you can have a particular number for a limited time but cannot let anyone else have a copy of that number or make a copy of the number for yourself, or even make a similar arrangement of numbers after the period you've been approved for.
Interestingly this makes irrational numbers illegal since they contain the numbers (all the numbers) you're not allowed to have a copy of.
It makes me wonder. What if I copyright a tiny black and white drawing which can be represented by a relatively small number. Then I sue a mathematician who has printed out or otherwise disseminated enough of Pi that it includes my number. Could we get a judge to rule that either having Pi without my permission is illegal, or alternatively that possession and dissemination of numbers can't be illegal?
If Barney didn't think you were driving safely he'd throw you in the drunk tank. Complain? That's a nightstick. Try to get a court hearing? That's a nightstick and maybe some stairs.
That's unless you were in a position where you could control Barney's rise or fall. Governors and mayors would never be able to get so drunk or high as to actually face repercussions. People with a few hundred bucks in their pocket would go on their way after donating to the police fund, etc.
That's why civilized societies include courts and evidence as part of the legal system. Otherwise Barney Fife *is* the law.
This post uses Barney Fife as the quintessential clueless cop, but Barney was well meaning and mostly honest, which is a far cry from the bad cops that we should worry about. Also, RIP Don Knotts, and thanks for the memories.
TFA mentioned that McDonalds had already been doing what Wendys is just now starting to do.
Don't forget their dependence on heating lamps and trash cans too.
The actual food cost is low compared to everything else, so what can't be sold while appealing gets trashed (instead of microwaved.) The amount of trashed food is pretty staggering.
But that's what you get when you try to give people what they want. We want food right now and we want it to be freshly prepared. That's only possible if you're constantly preparing food that may not be wanted.
I haven't had fast food in ... days. I think the last fast food I had was a McDonald's breakfast combo #5 with bacon, eggs and cheese on a biscuit with a hashbrown and orange juice. It seems so long ago; I don't know how long I can resist So . much . grease .
Essentially, machines will fly spores, seeds and embryos (or just genetic blueprints) to a habitable planet, do some basic terraforming then raise up some baby humans and teach them how to spread themselves and interact with the machines.
I expect humans to eventually be the virus that gets this sector of the galaxy wiped out.
Have you been reading Leviticus again?
I'll bite.
Capitalist systems, like others, function or fail based in part on scale. Most people are decent and don't need a threat of force to behave properly. Most small groups with a capitalist system work fine.
For those that have malicious citizens, making it legal to shoot someone stealing from you goes a long way toward stopping crime.
Of course, there will always be smart criminals who get away with stealing and it's easier in an unregulated environment. And, of course, people with guns and an excuse will use both more in an environment where that's acceptable.
Everything has trade offs. You want a large nation capable of self defense in a world with nukes and bombers and intercontinental missiles? Well, that means you can't have a nation small enough for pure capitalism or pure socialism to work. Tyranny might be another option, but it's tricky to get a good tyrant and even if you do, killing tyrants is a long standing tradition of humanity. With even the best of tyrants, you're just trading quality of leadership for span of leadership.
"They're a lot like the ultra-naive loony-left people who think that everyone is just going to behave and play nice because it's human nature, if only you just reason with them and plead with them. It's not."
I'm a Libertarian and I don't think human nature is all that good all the time. Maybe I'm not a true Scotsman...er, Libertarian. (I only assume I am based on my voting record. Well that and multiple attempts to see what ideology most closely matches my beliefs.)
Maybe you meant Communists? I haven't had much luck finding one well versed on philosophy who was willing to explain their beliefs to me. However, they're the ones who believe that everyone will work together in the shared best interest without market or government intervention. Oddly, they still seem to think governments are important and that the solution to problems is more governmental power, but hey, I haven't gotten that explained to me yet, so maybe I'm just missing the obvious logical explanation.
I think it's best in most cases to let people look out for their own interests instead of making everything the job of government. However, I do still firmly believe government has an important role in civilized society.
Except my local Wendy's doesn't fill the drink, they give you an empty cup. Then you walk over to a machine where you have to press your own buttons so you can get root beer flavored Sprite even though you don't want that.
I'd like to add that I cannot order a Sprite anywhere. It's on the menus but anyone who is asked for it will try to add fries and then ask you what you want to drink, even if that's what you were answering. Now I always order 7-Up like someone illiterate, but it works because they always ask if Sprite is okay.
Heaven help you if you ever have something wrong on a receipt! Asking most fast food people to do basic addition is practically impossible. Thank goodness they don't have to learn to count change.
So the basic job of the front counter line is to make people feel comfortable with the ordering process and to press buttons, but consumers are getting more and more comfortable pressing their own buttons.
Of course the testing and implementation will suck in the first areas this rolls out, but it will smooth the way and lower the costs for everywhere else. That means that the places where politicians try to raise wages will be the places where consumers and businesses and would-be employees all suffer the most.
Thank you California and New York for taking that hit for the rest of us!
After this is rolled out, bugs will get fixed and costs will go down and, when other places start implementing this, it will be smoother for everyone. It will still displace the minimum wage workers when it comes to our non-meddling political realm, but for us it will be smoother and our workers won't be displaced as rapidly. That means that our consumers will be happier and our businesses will be happier and our minimum wage workers will have a more stable job market.
I like this. We have FDA inspectors, fire marshals, bank examiners and so many other people who have the jobs of keeping the public safe. How do we not have security testers with that job?
I really like that approach. I was a little conflicted because, on the one hand I do want responsible use of radio spectrum, but on the other:
If you're asking, you aren't going to like the answer, but I'll try anyway.
Like many /.'ers I do support for family. Guess which laptops and computers get screwed up? Windows of course. If I don't want to have to fix stuff on a regular basis, I rule Windows out immediately. Macs seem a bit pricey but I could get over that, the problem I have is that typically people find it hard to use at first, which for some of my family translates to forever. (One of the people I support gets quite upset if Internet Explorer isn't on the page he left it on.)
You know what doesn't get screwed up? Chromebooks. I can hand one to a nine year old niece or to her grandmother and they'll be able to do everything they want and it won't be messed up when they hand it back. We have two that we keep on hand for just that sort of purpose. They're both cheap and a few years old, and they still keep up with all that their target audience asks of them.
At this price though, this wouldn't be for my niece or her grandmother. This would be a Chromebook for me. I'm a veteran of OSs ranging from Xenix to Microsoft Server 2012, so I feel comfortable with pretty much whatever. About the only question that matters to me when I pick an OS for my own use is how much effort it will require.
In years past, I would compile my own custom kernel and tweak optimizations for all the software I ran which made me a big fan of Gentoo and FreeBSD, and I'd spend hours tweaking Blackbox. These days? I take the easy and fast route for most things. My current desktop dual boots Windows 10 and Mint and most of my servers run CentOS. If I'm working, I'm either on a remote command line or in a remote desktop, so what good does Windows or Linux or Mac on the laptop do for me? The only thing I ask of my local computer most of the time is that it render web pages well and not give me grief over streaming videos when I'm taking downtime.
So this is a tempting laptop for me. It would do everything I need in a snappy fashion, including running video on my real displays and take zero maintenance. That's what makes Chromebooks most appealing, they don't take effort. Plus, with this higher level of hardware, if I ever decided I needed something else, I'd just put Linux or BSD on it and it'd be as good for the money as most of the alternatives I might have purchased.
Thank you, I've been trying to figure out what Mr. Yueting meant by "Apple only has individual apps." I have been assuming it was just a matter of phrasing that I was stumbling over. I take it, from your comment, that it would be fair to rephrase that comment as "Apple doesn't have an app that will try to do everything for you." I could see the logic if we had strong AI actually working. I'd love to be able to tell my phone to do the things I want and have it just work. With strong AI, it would be like having a butler handle your phone for you. There would be no need to separate the functions into apps since the butler would do everything. Short of strong AI, I guess it would be possible to have something like a chromebook, where all the functionality comes from web pages. Possible perhaps, but experience tells me that most people prefer the responsiveness of locally installed applications.
I love the term "cyberslapfighting."
When I browse slashdot, I like it to remember what level I choose last. It isn't strictly necessary for the site to work but it works better with the cookie to retain that information.
the wormhole stability was measured as lasting only .10717 seconds then to move a car 4.216 meters long (A DeLorean) through the wormhole before it closes you would need to be moving at 39.3395 meters per second or 88 MPH.
e) The main problem with the device is that this person described a device without applying/explaining any theory. It's rare to find something that works very unobviously like this simply on a hunch especially with the millions of crackpots out there describing various devices for 'free energy'.
Initially I dismissed this as a free energy hoax, but it kept coming back to life. Now I'm pretty sure it came about from an Illuminati agreement with an extraterrestrial:
Okay, we'll make the "You're fired" guy a legitimate presidential candidate for your Earth show if you give us a reactionless drive.
Thanks. I was battling with myself over whether to make those exact points. I dislike the man, but the popular accusations are almost always made in ignorance.
"My dream is to live in a nation where we can hate someone, not based on the color of their skin or which party they are associated with, but based on their words and actions." - intentionally misquoting a better man
My view is pretty US centric, so while there may be examples, none leap to mind. However, this law does give fetuses the same protection as a birthed baby. It's an interesting topic if you can keep politics and personal biases at bay.
Please note however, that I said "think of as" which means that it is an opinion held by people, not a position supported by legislative action.
Abortions are not a right, never were: have been illegal for the past more than 100 years, ...
I'm sure you have some lame pseudo-legal argument that you think proves that statement, but you're wrong.
I'm not certain, but I'd guess that the argument is that murder is illegal. It's not uncommon for people to think of abortions as murder and those who see it that way are unlikely to buy the argument that embryos/zygotes/fetuses aren't people. Murder was illegal in the days of American slavery, but law enforcement authorities didn't think of slaves as people, so many murders weren't prosecuted. (By "murder" I mean the traditional common language definition, not the legal definition which is somewhat more debatable.)
Whatever your argument is, it's not something people are actually prosecuted under. Some abortions are legal. If they weren't, all the abortion clinics would have been closed down.
Sorry, but that argument just isn't logical. For example, recreational use of marijuana is still illegal under federal law. The fact that it is rarely prosecuted in the states with differing laws doesn't mean it isn't illegal or that the federal government can't decide to prosecute based on the federal laws. Failure to prosecute an illegal act doesn't make it legal. There are lists all over the internet of silly things that are technically illegal that nobody is interested in prosecuting. If abortions weren't legal then there's a good chance states would still be refusing to prosecute, just like is happening now with the marijuana laws.
Your stronger argument would be to say that whatever the SCOTUS says is a "right" is, by very definition, legal. If the body that determines what law means says that it's okay to shoot your neighbor if your neighbor is bald, then it's legal by definition. If there are two laws where one says shooting people is illegal, and the other says shooting bald people is legal, then the more recent law is probably the one that has bearing. Your argument should be: Saying abortion is illegal is either demonstrating a misunderstanding of how the law works or arguing semantics. Either way, as a pragmatist, I will say that the law is whatever the entity controlling the army says it is.
The people that want to use the legal system to stop abortions are finding other ways.
Um, right? Isn't that how a society of law works? People who want something one way try to get laws and popular opinion to support while those who want it a different way try to get laws and popular opinion to oppose it. There's nothing immoral about trying to get the law to work more like you think it should. That's what democracies are supposed to support. People who don't are either criminals or tyrants. The recent changes in how the law affects marriage is a good example. There were laws for and against allowing different types of unions to be considered marriages. Eventually the conflicting laws and rulings advanced to the final decision in support of something that was never mentioned in the document that was cited as the authority. That's how our legal system works and many would argue that's a good thing. (You might raise the reasonable question of whether it *should* work that way or not, but I defer with the same pragmatist viewpoint expressed previously.)
They do things like passing the recent Texas law that required that abortions only be done in facilities that have more surgical capabilities than is required for other more complex surgical procedures.
The SCOTUS has allowed states to regulate abortion differently from other procedures. The SCOTUS has also said that states may not impose an "undue burden" on the constitutional right to an abortion. (Interestingly, they haven't found things like a 24 hour waiting period or parental consent to be an undue burden.) Naturally those people who oppose abortions should tr