Like many, unfortunately, you're misinterpreting the requirement of having a PI license to do computer forensics to mean that licensed PIs will be able to do computer forensics. Note that right now there are no restrictions, right? So that means anyone can claim they can do the forensics -- PIs and non-PIs. Requiring that you have a PI license won't give current PIs any capabilities they didn't already have. It would require all non-PI-licensed forensic experts to get a PI license. Whether or not that makes any sense depends on what the PI license is all about. If someone's going to gather evidence for later use in court, a registration certifying that you're familiar with evidence-gathering procedures isn't a completely crazy idea.
It's analagous to not allowing a hired security guard to (insert any of many investigative tasks). But as I haven't read the suggested law, I don't know what distinctions it chooses to make -- which is clearly an important part.
Typically investigation is defined as for hire and examining other peoples' data, not your own. So investigating your own logs, and even a company having permanent staff to investigate their own logs could constitute "security", but hiring someone from another firm to examine your logs after the fact could be "investigation".
Do you mean units of angular displacement? A distance that a body rotates is angular displacement. Typical units are degrees and radians, although there are others. It's also fairly common practice to use a full rotation as a unit, as in "the planet rotates 10/24ths in 10 hours".
They have high-powered telescopes in areas with low light pollution, but these telescopes have a fixed position. Over the course of 10 hours, the Earth rotates quite a bit (10/24ths!), so the area of the Earth that is prime for observing the meteors moves over a large distance during the course of the shower.
Planes can also fly above weather, whereas telescopes cannot see through many weather phenomena.
Given the kind of costs that research entails, a flight like this probably isn't all that expensive.
That's a pretty short research run for a scientist, although there's probably a respectable amount of equipment setup and testing beforehand. But no respectable scientist would go without coffee, even if it was a short trip.
Inconveniently, the TSA follows the principle that telling you exactly why they're not allowed poses some level of danger. This is security through obscurity, and from a theoretical security standpoint, is crap. The kind of physical security they do, though, is much more statistical than exact, so their obscurity is actually useful.
I've dealt with similar situations before. Some of their incomprehensible rules were actually the result of careful analysis. Without the reasoning, the rules seem nonsensical, but they're not about to explain the reasoning. It gets them little (just popularity) and reduces security. Unfortunately, this means you can't tell the difference between rules that are the result of careful analysis and ones that aren't. Both real and wannabe pundits will of course assume all rules are the latter.
This isn't really related to the original complaint, but yes, it would be nice if statistics were not misleading. Often they're intentionally misleading, and often "lies" would be a more accurate moniker than "misleading". But, it should generally be taken as granted, unless you're reading an original study that describes in detail its methods and analysis, that any statistic posed is far from accurate, that any inference drawn is drawn by the article's author and not by the study's author, and that summaries of that article will be even more wildly inaccurate than the article.
Certainly you understand that statistics and expressed opinions have nothing to do with constitutional rights. They're free to make estimates and inferences all they want.
In most of these cases, there's some communication between the individuals working on the same idea, but most of the work is done in private. Often the appearance of their work is different, though, even if it's fundamentally the same. (The calculus is a good example.)
Even then, scientists and inventors were not that insular -- the foundations of all of these discoveries had been slowly generating through previous works. In more recent times, the communication within the scientific community makes this standard -- WW2 through the Cold War is full of examples where the same thing was invented twice.
That summary of their analysis isn't that good -- it skips the important admissions of where what they tested differs from actual Hindenburg design. It does include that they used hydrogen-air mixtures instead of hydrogen. It also includes that the doped cloth (doped in an intentionally more-reactive mixture than was actually used on the Hindenburg) burned faster than undoped cloth, but this doesn't really address the question of why it was on fire in the first place, which was the real problem.
If the skin of the Hindenburg was really painted with thermite, then it would be fairly safe -- thermite is tough to ignite (though, once burning, is very hot and difficult to extinguish).
"For most crimes" -- I'm not certain about this one; CP is an exception in a few departments. However, it may be that they divide up the pictures. It only takes a small number to be charged with possession.
It's highly unlikely the techs actually broke contract with this guy, given the broad and permissive agreements you make when getting computers serviced.
There is, of course, a market for technicians who perform exactly the job they're hired for. It's good business in the classified world, for example. It's also not cheap.
Could, yes. It's not likely that criminal charges would be pursued. Bear in mind that the repair place, if they need to boot up your computer to do anything, probably has you sign or at least agree to a fairly broad waiver. While that doesn't protect them in all cases, there is also some leeway if you stumble onto private information in a not-so-private fashion, as long as you don't transmit that information to others -- and informing the police of illegal activities doesn't count. (As an example, ham radio operators can listen in on some wireless communications. The listening is not illegal, per se, but relaying or making use of information you overhear is invasion of privacy.)
To be honest, many of these guys are dumber than bricks. The files could've easily been on the desktop, in a folder labeled "Child Porn", carefully categorized in subfolders by content, to dispel any doubt that those files got there accidentally.
There's quite a lot of good corroborating forensic evidence you can uncover. The significant majority of these guys plea-bargain out of a trial anyway -- the last thing they want is for a jury to be shown what's on their computer. On top of that, if there's CP in any significant quantity, it's a federal crime. They'd have to serve time in both a state and federal prison. It's not likely they make it to the federal prison, though, if anyone in the state prison finds out what they're in for.
What someone who violates your privacy does is no less inappropriate or illegal if what they uncover is illegal than if it is not. However, this doesn't mean you retain your right to privacy. In most cases, while they've violated their privacy, if they uncover evidence of illegal actions, they're obligated anyway to inform authorities.
The trees were already absorbing CO2 by living there before you burned them. By removing them (for burning), you are reducing the CO2 uptake rate, and then increasing it again by planting more trees. If new trees take up CO2 at the same rate as old trees, then the global CO2 uptake rate is unchanged by your actions, yet you've turned a bunch of trees into CO2. On the other hand, if you left the trees there and burned coal, the global CO2 uptake rate is unchanged by your actions, and you've turned a bunch of coal into CO2.
Two issues aren't addressed. One, young trees might take up more CO2 than old trees. If this is the case, you simply remove the old trees and replace them with new ones. Burning the old trees is not necessary to the process of removing trees from a patch of land and planting new ones. Further, you're better off planting those trees in a space containing no trees and leaving the old space of trees alone, which gives you a gain in CO2 uptake rate.
Two, what you're after in your two options is producing the same amount of usable energy, not producing the same amount of CO2. One of the two options is bound to produce more CO2 per unit energy produced.
When the CO2 was captured isn't really relevant -- there's no real difference between burning trees and releasing X tons of CO2 and leaving those trees on the ground, with the CO2 captured, and instead burning enough coal and oil to release the same tons of CO2. All that really matters is the global production of CO2 compared to the global uptake of CO2.
"This is the kind of unhelpful response that doesn't win any converts to your way of thinking."
Scientists are frequently arrogant, perhaps because the validity of scientific findings are independent of whether or not you or anyone else agrees with them. Simply put, there's no real need for winning converts -- nor is it accurate to write it off as "a way of thinking".
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Like many, unfortunately, you're misinterpreting the requirement of having a PI license to do computer forensics to mean that licensed PIs will be able to do computer forensics. Note that right now there are no restrictions, right? So that means anyone can claim they can do the forensics -- PIs and non-PIs. Requiring that you have a PI license won't give current PIs any capabilities they didn't already have. It would require all non-PI-licensed forensic experts to get a PI license. Whether or not that makes any sense depends on what the PI license is all about. If someone's going to gather evidence for later use in court, a registration certifying that you're familiar with evidence-gathering procedures isn't a completely crazy idea.
It's analagous to not allowing a hired security guard to (insert any of many investigative tasks). But as I haven't read the suggested law, I don't know what distinctions it chooses to make -- which is clearly an important part.
Few nerds gather evidence of hacking or data theft for later use in legal proceedings.
Typically investigation is defined as for hire and examining other peoples' data, not your own. So investigating your own logs, and even a company having permanent staff to investigate their own logs could constitute "security", but hiring someone from another firm to examine your logs after the fact could be "investigation".
Do you mean units of angular displacement? A distance that a body rotates is angular displacement. Typical units are degrees and radians, although there are others. It's also fairly common practice to use a full rotation as a unit, as in "the planet rotates 10/24ths in 10 hours".
They have high-powered telescopes in areas with low light pollution, but these telescopes have a fixed position. Over the course of 10 hours, the Earth rotates quite a bit (10/24ths!), so the area of the Earth that is prime for observing the meteors moves over a large distance during the course of the shower.
Planes can also fly above weather, whereas telescopes cannot see through many weather phenomena.
Given the kind of costs that research entails, a flight like this probably isn't all that expensive.
That's a pretty short research run for a scientist, although there's probably a respectable amount of equipment setup and testing beforehand. But no respectable scientist would go without coffee, even if it was a short trip.
Inconveniently, the TSA follows the principle that telling you exactly why they're not allowed poses some level of danger. This is security through obscurity, and from a theoretical security standpoint, is crap. The kind of physical security they do, though, is much more statistical than exact, so their obscurity is actually useful.
I've dealt with similar situations before. Some of their incomprehensible rules were actually the result of careful analysis. Without the reasoning, the rules seem nonsensical, but they're not about to explain the reasoning. It gets them little (just popularity) and reduces security. Unfortunately, this means you can't tell the difference between rules that are the result of careful analysis and ones that aren't. Both real and wannabe pundits will of course assume all rules are the latter.
This isn't really related to the original complaint, but yes, it would be nice if statistics were not misleading. Often they're intentionally misleading, and often "lies" would be a more accurate moniker than "misleading". But, it should generally be taken as granted, unless you're reading an original study that describes in detail its methods and analysis, that any statistic posed is far from accurate, that any inference drawn is drawn by the article's author and not by the study's author, and that summaries of that article will be even more wildly inaccurate than the article.
Certainly you understand that statistics and expressed opinions have nothing to do with constitutional rights. They're free to make estimates and inferences all they want.
In most of these cases, there's some communication between the individuals working on the same idea, but most of the work is done in private. Often the appearance of their work is different, though, even if it's fundamentally the same. (The calculus is a good example.)
Even then, scientists and inventors were not that insular -- the foundations of all of these discoveries had been slowly generating through previous works. In more recent times, the communication within the scientific community makes this standard -- WW2 through the Cold War is full of examples where the same thing was invented twice.
That summary of their analysis isn't that good -- it skips the important admissions of where what they tested differs from actual Hindenburg design. It does include that they used hydrogen-air mixtures instead of hydrogen. It also includes that the doped cloth (doped in an intentionally more-reactive mixture than was actually used on the Hindenburg) burned faster than undoped cloth, but this doesn't really address the question of why it was on fire in the first place, which was the real problem.
If the skin of the Hindenburg was really painted with thermite, then it would be fairly safe -- thermite is tough to ignite (though, once burning, is very hot and difficult to extinguish).
That theory has been fairly soundly debunked.
"For most crimes" -- I'm not certain about this one; CP is an exception in a few departments. However, it may be that they divide up the pictures. It only takes a small number to be charged with possession.
It's highly unlikely the techs actually broke contract with this guy, given the broad and permissive agreements you make when getting computers serviced.
There is, of course, a market for technicians who perform exactly the job they're hired for. It's good business in the classified world, for example. It's also not cheap.
Could, yes. It's not likely that criminal charges would be pursued. Bear in mind that the repair place, if they need to boot up your computer to do anything, probably has you sign or at least agree to a fairly broad waiver. While that doesn't protect them in all cases, there is also some leeway if you stumble onto private information in a not-so-private fashion, as long as you don't transmit that information to others -- and informing the police of illegal activities doesn't count. (As an example, ham radio operators can listen in on some wireless communications. The listening is not illegal, per se, but relaying or making use of information you overhear is invasion of privacy.)
To be honest, many of these guys are dumber than bricks. The files could've easily been on the desktop, in a folder labeled "Child Porn", carefully categorized in subfolders by content, to dispel any doubt that those files got there accidentally.
There's quite a lot of good corroborating forensic evidence you can uncover. The significant majority of these guys plea-bargain out of a trial anyway -- the last thing they want is for a jury to be shown what's on their computer. On top of that, if there's CP in any significant quantity, it's a federal crime. They'd have to serve time in both a state and federal prison. It's not likely they make it to the federal prison, though, if anyone in the state prison finds out what they're in for.
What someone who violates your privacy does is no less inappropriate or illegal if what they uncover is illegal than if it is not. However, this doesn't mean you retain your right to privacy. In most cases, while they've violated their privacy, if they uncover evidence of illegal actions, they're obligated anyway to inform authorities.
It's not correct to claim that anywhere near the full carbon mass of the tree will be eventually converted to CO2 after its death.
You also don't address the efficiency of coal versus wood, since we're not interested in producing CO2, but obtaining useful energy.
You're really just tricking yourself with improper logic.
That's what those fancy error ranges are for.
The trees were already absorbing CO2 by living there before you burned them. By removing them (for burning), you are reducing the CO2 uptake rate, and then increasing it again by planting more trees. If new trees take up CO2 at the same rate as old trees, then the global CO2 uptake rate is unchanged by your actions, yet you've turned a bunch of trees into CO2. On the other hand, if you left the trees there and burned coal, the global CO2 uptake rate is unchanged by your actions, and you've turned a bunch of coal into CO2.
Two issues aren't addressed. One, young trees might take up more CO2 than old trees. If this is the case, you simply remove the old trees and replace them with new ones. Burning the old trees is not necessary to the process of removing trees from a patch of land and planting new ones. Further, you're better off planting those trees in a space containing no trees and leaving the old space of trees alone, which gives you a gain in CO2 uptake rate.
Two, what you're after in your two options is producing the same amount of usable energy, not producing the same amount of CO2. One of the two options is bound to produce more CO2 per unit energy produced.
When the CO2 was captured isn't really relevant -- there's no real difference between burning trees and releasing X tons of CO2 and leaving those trees on the ground, with the CO2 captured, and instead burning enough coal and oil to release the same tons of CO2. All that really matters is the global production of CO2 compared to the global uptake of CO2.
"This is the kind of unhelpful response that doesn't win any converts to your way of thinking."
Scientists are frequently arrogant, perhaps because the validity of scientific findings are independent of whether or not you or anyone else agrees with them. Simply put, there's no real need for winning converts -- nor is it accurate to write it off as "a way of thinking".
Actually, that's the entire argument for IRV.