This is probably going to go against popular opinion, but having read the bill, it looks ok with one exception: "annoy or offend". Remove those two (ok, three counting "or") words and what you have is a bill that says "It's illegal to threaten someone via the telephone so it should be illegal to do so online as well." Remember, freedom of speech isn't freedom to threaten someone with bodily harm or to stalk someone.
With "annoy/offend" intact, though, the law could be read in much too broad of a manner and could easily infringe on someone's free speech rights.
Google actually does work hard at keeping people from gaming the system. That being said, however, no system is perfect and there *will* be some people who figure out how to exploit it. It's inevitable and can't be stopped completely. The best Google can do is make it as tricky as possible so few people can accomplish this.
And other eyewitnesses say differently. There should be a thorough investigation and if there's the slightest sign of something fishy (which there is otherwise this wouldn't be so controversial) Zimmerman should be put through a proper trial in a court of law. Let him use Self Defense as his justification and provide his side of the story (i.e. he was headed back to his car when Trayvon jumped him, began beating him and he shot Trayvon in fear for his life). Let the prosecutor present the story of a man who stalked/killed Trayvon. Let the jury weight both stories and the evidence for each side. Let them come to a verdict and, if guilty, let the law pass down a punishment for Zimmerman. That will be justice no matter whether he's found guilty or innocent. (Though I know both sides won't like it if the verdict doesn't fall their way.)
However, to just accept his story as is, ignore any conflicting evidence, and close the investigation is lazy at best and corrupt at worst.
Exactly. Imagine you ran the company that found the cure to cancer, the magic bullet that stopped all cancer dead in its tracks. Even if you didn't make a dime off of the cure itself, your new company slogan would be "We Cured Cancer!" Every commercial from then on out would say "From the people who cured cancer comes a radical new treatment for XYZ." Heck, even any regulations the government tried to saddle them with could be spun as "The government takes action against the cancer curers! OMG HORROR!" Any pharmaceutical company would kill (or save lives as the case may be) for this PR.
And this won't happen again because of two things:
1) Pre-911, a hijacking meant you sit down and stay quiet. The hijackers take over, fly the plane to Cuba (or some other location), make a big statement about some political cause and (after some political negotiations), everyone is set free. Inconvenient? Sure, but in general not life threatening if you sit down and be quiet. However, now if someone hijacks an airplane, everyone will assume they intend to kill everyone on-board. Thus, there is nothing to lose trying to violently overthrow the hijackers. Worst case scenario: Everyone still dies, but might derail the terrorists' plans. Best case scenario: The terrorists are foiled and some/all passengers survive.
2) The cockpit doors are sealed and reinforced so a terrorist can't get to the cockpit. So even if a terrorist takes over the passenger section *AND* if the passengers don't fight back, the pilots can land the plane to minimize the damage the terrorists can do.
Even without a single post-911 TSA "advancement", no terrorist will be able to replicate 9-11. (This isn't to say they can't kill more people, just that they can't repeat their previous performance.)
With all Righthaven did, I wonder if this will simply be the end to the lawsuits. If so, this would be a really bad thing. When all is said and done, if the courts just shut down the lawsuits now, the folks behind Righthaven will have been able to sue a bunch of people and then walk away without any penalties. Sure, Righthaven will be shuttered, but there are indications that they shuttled assets elsewhere first to avoid paying debts. If the courts allow this, what's to stop any company from forming a shell company (to protect the parent), conducting a series of lawsuits, and simply dissolving the shell if things go badly? The downside here seems low and the upside (if you are successful in forcing people to settle) seems high. There needs to be a full investigation here with appropriate charges filed/fines issued to make sure other companies get the message that this is unacceptable.
I tried this but then I lost the RFID detector. Once I found it again, I tagged it and now have an RFID Detector Detector. And just to make sure that isn't lost, I tagged that device and have an RFID Detector Detector Detector. What was I looking for again?
I think it's a matter of wanting to know what you're eating. If I ask for Tilapia fillets, I expect to be given Tilapia fillets and not some other fish that looks and tastes like Tilapia. I'd bet people would be upset if Supermarkets put store brands on the shelf that looked just like the name brand products (including labels/product name) so that when you wanted to buy Jiffy Peanut Butter you got Store Brand X Peanut Butter instead. Yes, I know store brands are just as good and less money, but it should be up to the customer whether or not they buy a store brand or a type of fish, not a merchant who intentionally mislabels products to increase sales or reduce costs.
Solar flares have little to no effect on our climate. For more details, I'd refer you to this post by Phil Plait (BadAstronomer): http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/17/are-we-headed-for-a-new-ice-age/
Knowing my luck, it will be right before my planned trip out of town and will bring a record 3 foot snowfall that keeps all planes grounded for a week.
This warm season actually doesn't have as much to do with Global Warming/Climate Change as it has to do with a double whammy of La Nina and an Arctic Oscillation. The former brought unusually warm weather while the latter kept the colder, arctic air away from us. The combination of the two warming effects gave us a warm, relatively snowless winter.
This isn't to say that GW/CC isn't real. Just that this winter is explained by other forces at play.
The problem is that the word "theory" has different meanings to Scientists and Layperson. To a layperson, a theory is a guess as to how things are, often a guess with little to no evidence backing it up. To a scientist, a theory is an explanation that matches a set of data. This theory can be used to make predictions which will then either be proven true, thus supporting the theory, or shown to be false, thus causing the theory to be modified.
The Theory of Evolution has made many predictions and has even been wrong sometimes. Unfortunately for Creationists, it was wrong in small ways and the theory was easily modified to take these into account. The Theory of Evolution as it stands today might never reach the status of "Law", but it also is highly unlikely to be completely overturned. Of course, this doesn't stop Creationists from grabbing upon the scientific word "theory", applying the layperson definition, and touting this as proof that Evolution has no evidence supporting it.
Method of Hanging In Mid-Air For A Few Seconds, Completely Ignoring The Law of Gravity Before Plummeting Off A Cliff... Wait, that one's owned by Wile E Coyote.
What if I add "using computers" or "using The Internet"? Can I apply for a patent for "Method of not falling off the Earth through the application of gravity and The Internet"?
Hey, that Mario's a very subversive game. He goes around munching on Mushrooms and squashing people (ok, Goombas and Koopas) left and right all in order to get into the Princess' dress... er, castle.
About the only way I could see this working within the TMNT mythos would be if the "ooze" that turns the Turtles into human-sized, talking, ninja-capable creatures was from some crashed alien ship. Something along the lines of: Alien ship crashes, government transports strange substance to secret lab in New York City, canister falls off truck into sewer, canister breaks open oozing slime onto turtles, turtles mutate into TMNT. Therefore, the turtles would be part-alien in a manner of speaking.
Of course, I fully expect Michael Bay to turn them into alien creatures who came to Earth to have huge fights with plenty of explosions, half-naked women, and tons of TMNT fans screaming in horror.
Pointing out the facts is not a 'systematic effort to influence the development of the law'.
[Begin MPAA Mode] Why, of course it is! How dare they bring up facts that run counter to the MPAA's case! Don't they know that piracy costs content creators eleventy bazillion dollars every nanosecond? Don't they know that piracy results in twelve thousand lost jobs per second, cancer of the ear lobe, muggings, global warming, and the hiccups? Google should be immediately turned over to the MPAA to operate for the good of us all!!!! (Is that enough exclamation points yet? No, I think it needs three more) !!! (There, perfect.) [End MPAA Mode]
I get those (copy/paste spam) too. Often copy/pasted from another comment on the exact same blog post. As if I won't notice 2 people saying the exact same thing (one not a spammer and one a lazy copy/paste spammer). Actually, for some reason, my blog is VERY popular with the spammers. Thank goodness for Akismet!
Sadly, some spammers actually do this. I'll get a comment on my blog that reads like the person actually read my article and put some thought into commenting... and then I see the link to some "secret to whitening your teeth" or "buy herbal viagra" website. So I can either delete the spam comment, keep the comment and remove the link, or keep the comment and link and be linking to a spam site. The latter's not really an option. The middle one's ok, but I mostly take the first path.
Slashdot Mirror
This is probably going to go against popular opinion, but having read the bill, it looks ok with one exception: "annoy or offend". Remove those two (ok, three counting "or") words and what you have is a bill that says "It's illegal to threaten someone via the telephone so it should be illegal to do so online as well." Remember, freedom of speech isn't freedom to threaten someone with bodily harm or to stalk someone.
With "annoy/offend" intact, though, the law could be read in much too broad of a manner and could easily infringe on someone's free speech rights.
Yeah, I don't know why anyone would post their real name on the Intern.... oops.
Wait, I thought that the moment a statement went on the Internet it automatically became true.
In an unrelated matter, please nobody post "This statement is False" or the Internet may implode.
Google actually does work hard at keeping people from gaming the system. That being said, however, no system is perfect and there *will* be some people who figure out how to exploit it. It's inevitable and can't be stopped completely. The best Google can do is make it as tricky as possible so few people can accomplish this.
I know XKCD is the standard comic-of-choice for Slashdot posts, but this Joy of Tech comic seems apropos:
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1669.html
And other eyewitnesses say differently. There should be a thorough investigation and if there's the slightest sign of something fishy (which there is otherwise this wouldn't be so controversial) Zimmerman should be put through a proper trial in a court of law. Let him use Self Defense as his justification and provide his side of the story (i.e. he was headed back to his car when Trayvon jumped him, began beating him and he shot Trayvon in fear for his life). Let the prosecutor present the story of a man who stalked/killed Trayvon. Let the jury weight both stories and the evidence for each side. Let them come to a verdict and, if guilty, let the law pass down a punishment for Zimmerman. That will be justice no matter whether he's found guilty or innocent. (Though I know both sides won't like it if the verdict doesn't fall their way.)
However, to just accept his story as is, ignore any conflicting evidence, and close the investigation is lazy at best and corrupt at worst.
So once they cure all cancer we'll finally be able to eat, drink, sit in the sun, etc again without worrying about cancer!
"Rats, I sat in the sun too long. There's some melanoma. Better stop by CVS on the way home to pick up some CancerBGone."
Exactly. Imagine you ran the company that found the cure to cancer, the magic bullet that stopped all cancer dead in its tracks. Even if you didn't make a dime off of the cure itself, your new company slogan would be "We Cured Cancer!" Every commercial from then on out would say "From the people who cured cancer comes a radical new treatment for XYZ." Heck, even any regulations the government tried to saddle them with could be spun as "The government takes action against the cancer curers! OMG HORROR!" Any pharmaceutical company would kill (or save lives as the case may be) for this PR.
And this won't happen again because of two things:
1) Pre-911, a hijacking meant you sit down and stay quiet. The hijackers take over, fly the plane to Cuba (or some other location), make a big statement about some political cause and (after some political negotiations), everyone is set free. Inconvenient? Sure, but in general not life threatening if you sit down and be quiet. However, now if someone hijacks an airplane, everyone will assume they intend to kill everyone on-board. Thus, there is nothing to lose trying to violently overthrow the hijackers. Worst case scenario: Everyone still dies, but might derail the terrorists' plans. Best case scenario: The terrorists are foiled and some/all passengers survive.
2) The cockpit doors are sealed and reinforced so a terrorist can't get to the cockpit. So even if a terrorist takes over the passenger section *AND* if the passengers don't fight back, the pilots can land the plane to minimize the damage the terrorists can do.
Even without a single post-911 TSA "advancement", no terrorist will be able to replicate 9-11. (This isn't to say they can't kill more people, just that they can't repeat their previous performance.)
With all Righthaven did, I wonder if this will simply be the end to the lawsuits. If so, this would be a really bad thing. When all is said and done, if the courts just shut down the lawsuits now, the folks behind Righthaven will have been able to sue a bunch of people and then walk away without any penalties. Sure, Righthaven will be shuttered, but there are indications that they shuttled assets elsewhere first to avoid paying debts. If the courts allow this, what's to stop any company from forming a shell company (to protect the parent), conducting a series of lawsuits, and simply dissolving the shell if things go badly? The downside here seems low and the upside (if you are successful in forcing people to settle) seems high. There needs to be a full investigation here with appropriate charges filed/fines issued to make sure other companies get the message that this is unacceptable.
I tried this but then I lost the RFID detector. Once I found it again, I tagged it and now have an RFID Detector Detector. And just to make sure that isn't lost, I tagged that device and have an RFID Detector Detector Detector. What was I looking for again?
African or European?
I think it's a matter of wanting to know what you're eating. If I ask for Tilapia fillets, I expect to be given Tilapia fillets and not some other fish that looks and tastes like Tilapia. I'd bet people would be upset if Supermarkets put store brands on the shelf that looked just like the name brand products (including labels/product name) so that when you wanted to buy Jiffy Peanut Butter you got Store Brand X Peanut Butter instead. Yes, I know store brands are just as good and less money, but it should be up to the customer whether or not they buy a store brand or a type of fish, not a merchant who intentionally mislabels products to increase sales or reduce costs.
Solar flares have little to no effect on our climate. For more details, I'd refer you to this post by Phil Plait (BadAstronomer): http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/17/are-we-headed-for-a-new-ice-age/
Knowing my luck, it will be right before my planned trip out of town and will bring a record 3 foot snowfall that keeps all planes grounded for a week.
This warm season actually doesn't have as much to do with Global Warming/Climate Change as it has to do with a double whammy of La Nina and an Arctic Oscillation. The former brought unusually warm weather while the latter kept the colder, arctic air away from us. The combination of the two warming effects gave us a warm, relatively snowless winter.
This isn't to say that GW/CC isn't real. Just that this winter is explained by other forces at play.
I found one but accidentally stepped on it. What do I do now? Also, did anyone hear thunder?
The problem is that the word "theory" has different meanings to Scientists and Layperson. To a layperson, a theory is a guess as to how things are, often a guess with little to no evidence backing it up. To a scientist, a theory is an explanation that matches a set of data. This theory can be used to make predictions which will then either be proven true, thus supporting the theory, or shown to be false, thus causing the theory to be modified.
The Theory of Evolution has made many predictions and has even been wrong sometimes. Unfortunately for Creationists, it was wrong in small ways and the theory was easily modified to take these into account. The Theory of Evolution as it stands today might never reach the status of "Law", but it also is highly unlikely to be completely overturned. Of course, this doesn't stop Creationists from grabbing upon the scientific word "theory", applying the layperson definition, and touting this as proof that Evolution has no evidence supporting it.
Method of Hanging In Mid-Air For A Few Seconds, Completely Ignoring The Law of Gravity Before Plummeting Off A Cliff... Wait, that one's owned by Wile E Coyote.
What if I add "using computers" or "using The Internet"? Can I apply for a patent for "Method of not falling off the Earth through the application of gravity and The Internet"?
Hey, that Mario's a very subversive game. He goes around munching on Mushrooms and squashing people (ok, Goombas and Koopas) left and right all in order to get into the Princess' dress... er, castle.
About the only way I could see this working within the TMNT mythos would be if the "ooze" that turns the Turtles into human-sized, talking, ninja-capable creatures was from some crashed alien ship. Something along the lines of: Alien ship crashes, government transports strange substance to secret lab in New York City, canister falls off truck into sewer, canister breaks open oozing slime onto turtles, turtles mutate into TMNT. Therefore, the turtles would be part-alien in a manner of speaking.
Of course, I fully expect Michael Bay to turn them into alien creatures who came to Earth to have huge fights with plenty of explosions, half-naked women, and tons of TMNT fans screaming in horror.
[Begin MPAA Mode]
Why, of course it is! How dare they bring up facts that run counter to the MPAA's case! Don't they know that piracy costs content creators eleventy bazillion dollars every nanosecond? Don't they know that piracy results in twelve thousand lost jobs per second, cancer of the ear lobe, muggings, global warming, and the hiccups? Google should be immediately turned over to the MPAA to operate for the good of us all!!!! (Is that enough exclamation points yet? No, I think it needs three more) !!! (There, perfect.)
[End MPAA Mode]
I get those (copy/paste spam) too. Often copy/pasted from another comment on the exact same blog post. As if I won't notice 2 people saying the exact same thing (one not a spammer and one a lazy copy/paste spammer). Actually, for some reason, my blog is VERY popular with the spammers. Thank goodness for Akismet!
Sadly, some spammers actually do this. I'll get a comment on my blog that reads like the person actually read my article and put some thought into commenting... and then I see the link to some "secret to whitening your teeth" or "buy herbal viagra" website. So I can either delete the spam comment, keep the comment and remove the link, or keep the comment and link and be linking to a spam site. The latter's not really an option. The middle one's ok, but I mostly take the first path.