If they need a warrant (from the FISA court) to access the data (just like previously)
Well, if you put the "just like previously" part into your own post, then we aren't disagreeing, that this is not much of an improvement — and that was my premise.
That agreement now established, let's move on to what's wrong with the existing Act — and what's likely to remain wrong even after the proposed amendments are passed...
I said nothing about the Forth Amendment, actually. Whether it even applies to one's communications is no immediately obvious. No, my claim is not whether Patriot Act violates the Constitution, but whether or not the upcoming changes to it constitute a discernible improvement.
Would you prefer that law enforcement/spy agencies had to be fully tied and unable to conduct investigations?
I would prefer, that the government had no way to force private companies to preemptively record data about me just in case it may be needed by some future investigation.
Without being so forced, some companies may still prefer to do it seeking your business and others may choose not to seeking that of libertines. The existing regulatory mandate — cooperate with the FBI or else — troubles me greatly, and should trouble everyone...
they want to listen to music. hardly a grave moral transgression
I said nothing about listening. I wrote only about playing.
is it written somewhere in the bible or the quran that making money off of recorded music is some sort of basic human right? no
If the 10 Commandments were the sort of "living and breathing document", that certain people claim the US Constitution to be, the "Thou shalt not play records without recorder's permissions" would've been in it by now.
you make money form live performance, patronage, ads, ancillary revenue, etc.
Why must an artist's (or, indeed, anyone's!) money-making be restricted to the sources you find agreeable? And what of others of your kind, who'll claim, for example:
that mixing ads with art iis wrong,
or that patronage is immoral,
or that live performance is insufficiently egalitarian?
We are paying people for their utilizing their skills in the way we like. If Elon Musk can profit from designing a wonder battery in different ways, why can't a singer squeeze everything from a successful song?
If the artist didn't exist, you would've had no song and nothing to complain about. If does exist, but you don't like him or his desire to be paid — well, just ignore him, as if he didn't exist. Problem solved.
the words you say are in defense of a temporary power arrangement, physical media
Which words of mine do you consider relating to any particular "physical media"? I certainly meant no such relationship — the only presumption in my post was that a verbatim recording of musical performance is possible. Whether the recording is on a tape, CD, a flash-drive or whatever is of no consequence.
So, are all you skeptics paid shills, or just really passionate about your cause?
I, for one, am rather passionate about some odd numbers not being primes.
That there is an infinite amount of them strengthens my position, but having only a few exceptions is enough to invalidate the theory I cited as an example.
"The bill ends bulk collection, it ends secret law," says Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, the original author of the Patriot Act who has now helped author the Freedom Act.
Under the bipartisan bills in the House and Senate, the Patriot Act would be changed to prohibit bulk collection, and sweeps that had operated under the guise of so-called National Security Letters issued by the F.B.I. would end. The data would instead be stored by the phone companies themselves [emphasis mine -mi], and could be accessed by intelligence agencies only after approval of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.
Some psychologists say this shows the field has a replicability problem.
I'd say, credibility is the problem plaguing the field.
The experimenters really wanted each experiment to predict their theory... The less precise a science, the worse a problem this is.
In Mathematics, where absolute proofs are possible, and proponents of this or that public policy fiddle not, things are fine. But if a psychologist or, dare I say it, a climate scientist thought, that all odd numbers are prime, for example, they would've staged an experiment: "3, 5, 7" and declared the theory confirmed... Yes, the subsequent "9" is problematic, but "11" and "13" are further confirmations and how much research do you need anyway, skeptic, before you start doing something?
The gigafactory is the recipient of the largest incentive package ever given by Nevada at $1.3 billion, which followed a hotly contested tax incentive bidding war between various states to land the Tesla battery plant. For the investment to pay off, Tesla needs to convince hundreds of thousands of consumers per year to buy its cars and battery products, with the gigafactory serving as a cornerstone to the company's sales strategy.
I see, that Slashdot is eager to help in advertising with free (it is, is not it?) promotion.
Corporations are, after all, a charter granted by the government
Semantics. As long as people are free to associate and work together on something, such groups may as well be called "corporations" (or "cooperatives" or "collective farms"). And no, they don't exist on government's sufferance.
Government is a monopoly — and its pretense to "care" is being shattered in Baltimore as we argue — and I don't mean only the still-investigated death of a miscreant in police custody, but the mayor's orders to police to stand down and not protect citizens and their property from the rioting scum.
legally obligated not to care
Nonsense. They are legally obligated to maximize shareholders' value. This makes them care for my money and the only ways for them to get it is to offer me something I want. Government-run service-providers (such as police or Amtrak) don't have these ugly concerns for so base an object as "money" and consequently care not. All you can hope from them is the pretense of caring...
doesn't seem like a good trade.
I would've left you to your follies, except your decisions to hand over more and more control over your life to the government empowers it to take the same control over mine.
There's always limits on freedom due to conflicts, eg the classic conflict between my waving my fist and your right not to get punched.
Sure. Now please explain, how this truism is relevant to the issue at hand. Whose "nose" and whose "fist" are we talking about?
Staying on topic, there is limits to how many Individuals can erect telephone poles and how many wires/fibers can go on the poles
There may be a limit, but we are far from reaching it. FiOS cable runs to my house from the same pole, from which Comcast's cable runs to my neighbors. I think, the same pole can handle 10 or 20 more such cables easily.
the collective can put up the poles, run the fiber and allow anyone to use them for a reasonable fee
You must be a real fan of our collectively-run roads ($2mln per mile!! where I live) and public transit, but I am not. Just what is it, that makes the normally monopoly-abhorring slashdotters all weak in the knees, when it comes to governmental monopoly is beyond me. It is the worst monopoly imaginable...
there's also a limit on the number of roads that are possible so they're run by the collective
First of all, I do not accept the "cables are like roads" analogy — they aren't. But even roads can be private and competing. If Tokyo has privately-owned competing subway lines, why can't New York?
In a free country, businesses don't get massive government subsidies and de-facto monopolies.
That's absolutely true. And Libertarians foughtthose things tooth-and-nail too.
But a government's folly of subsidizing a business does not give us the right to take it over. We don't own Internet infrastructure any more than we own Tesla's wonder-cars.
Also, in a free country, governments can decide no business serves their constituents well and decide to serve their constituents directly.
Huh? Can you elaborate on the logical chain that lead you to this statement? What sort of freedom is it, that allows the Collective to arbitrarily prohibit an Individual to offer a service?
I like this guy but he seems to come along with the occasional show stopper
Typical attitude of those, who only want freedom for themselves, while ready to trample that of others.
Hint: in a free country, businesses exist not because the Collective needs their services, but because their owners choose to pursue happiness that way.
Libertarians remember that and fight any attempts to coerce citizens into some kind of Greater Good[TM].
Bravo! This sentence alone explains everything about you. Very well put, except for one minor nit: In such context, the word is spelled KKKonservatives. Otherwise perfect.
Or you don't know how studies are done.
I do. And one of the requirements for a scientific finding, is that it be reproducible.
If they're going to create such a rule for EPA, then it should also apply to NIH, FDA, DOE
You have to start somewhere.
If they don't make it universal, then they're showing an obvious bias
Even if there is such a bias, what of it? It is not like imposing this rule on the EPA today would prevent imposing it on other departments/agencies later.
Besides, the opponents of the idea do not oppose it on the grounds, that it is not going far enough. Obama is not saying:"I will veto this bill unless the rule covers the entire federal government! No way, no how!!"
The point is that the pontiff's — or, for that matter, any other non-scientist celebrity — agreement with a supposedly scientific argument, adds no more weight to it, than a disagreement by the same celebrity would have removed.
Oh, please. If he instead expressed skepticism, you would've dismissed him as a religious bigot, who believes the Earth was created 5 thousand years ago by a Deity and given to Man to control, and is not a scientist.
Now you are willing to praise him because he agrees with you. Bah...
Skeptics certainly have a clue — it an environment as hostile to skepticism as the climate debate is, any contrarian is always far more educated on the subject, than the following-the-flow crowd. They may still be wrong, but clues they have aplenty.
Why don't we play a game: can you cite two predictions made by global warming "alarmists", that actually came true within 80%? Each citation would have to include a link to the prediction and a link to the confirmation — with the two being 5 years apart or more... The first such predictions have been made decades ago — some are bound to have materialized by now... How about it?
The provisions seemed rather common sense to me when reading through them: Maintaining a list of drivers, criminal background checks, sufficient insurance for commercial purposes, visible external marker on the car, yearly safety inspections, minimum age of 21, and a license fee for the privilege of this oversight, of course.
These might make sense for taxis, which are/were government-enforced monopolies. But for the viciously competing companies the regulations aren't needed.
And, like all regulations, they inevitably increase costs. That the Statists of Massachusetts will seek to impose such things is not surprising. That Slashdot would applaud them — that's more of a disgrace...
I find it rather ironic, that the same site, which shouts down any attempts to reason that an idea can be owned — and that using it without the owner's permission is illegal and immoral — would be so respectful towards other kinds of information.
If, as the opinion prevailing here holds, "information can not be stolen" because you still have your original copy, what grounds are there to prohibit somebody else to share, what they know about you, with others? On that matter, will you also outlaw gossip?
The problem seems to be that if you *can* give permission then you will be coerced into giving permission.
Except the term coercion implies use of force. As long as you aren't forced to use a web-site despite your disagreement with their EULA, you can not complain of being "coerced".
Well, movies are supposed to manipulate your emotions.
Movies are. But not the news-reports. And yet, Abu Ghraib scandal — in addition to legal prosecution of the culprits — brought down moral condemnation of not only them, but the entire chain of command all the way up to the then-President.
That nobody said a word to likewise condemn the fictitious Marine Captain Steven Hiller — the dashing hero of the "Independence Day" — suggests, our emotions against the real miscreants were deliberately whipped-up.
Given the harm the manipulation did to the American cause, one can be forgiven for suspecting, it was orchestrated — at least in part — by a hostile party... Would not have been the first time...
Li-ion is just too expensive and maintenance-intensive to use grid scale.
"Grid scale" simply can not be more expensive than single-house scale.
It is called "Economy of scale" and although some of such may have limits, beyond which cost of additional units begins to increase, none of the conditions for that would apply in this case.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, if you put the "just like previously" part into your own post, then we aren't disagreeing, that this is not much of an improvement — and that was my premise.
That agreement now established, let's move on to what's wrong with the existing Act — and what's likely to remain wrong even after the proposed amendments are passed...
And the problem with FISA-court is that — unlike all other courts — it does not hear both sides . They may deny the rubber-stamp allegations, but they have only rejected 11 surveillance requests out of 33900 submitted since the court's inception to 2013...
I said nothing about the Forth Amendment, actually. Whether it even applies to one's communications is no immediately obvious. No, my claim is not whether Patriot Act violates the Constitution, but whether or not the upcoming changes to it constitute a discernible improvement.
I would prefer, that the government had no way to force private companies to preemptively record data about me just in case it may be needed by some future investigation.
Without being so forced, some companies may still prefer to do it seeking your business and others may choose not to seeking that of libertines. The existing regulatory mandate — cooperate with the FBI or else — troubles me greatly, and should trouble everyone...
I said nothing about listening. I wrote only about playing.
If the 10 Commandments were the sort of "living and breathing document", that certain people claim the US Constitution to be, the "Thou shalt not play records without recorder's permissions" would've been in it by now.
Why must an artist's (or, indeed, anyone's!) money-making be restricted to the sources you find agreeable? And what of others of your kind, who'll claim, for example:
We are paying people for their utilizing their skills in the way we like. If Elon Musk can profit from designing a wonder battery in different ways, why can't a singer squeeze everything from a successful song?
If the artist didn't exist, you would've had no song and nothing to complain about. If does exist, but you don't like him or his desire to be paid — well, just ignore him, as if he didn't exist. Problem solved.
Which words of mine do you consider relating to any particular "physical media"? I certainly meant no such relationship — the only presumption in my post was that a verbatim recording of musical performance is possible. Whether the recording is on a tape, CD, a flash-drive or whatever is of no consequence.
I, for one, am rather passionate about some odd numbers not being primes.
That there is an infinite amount of them strengthens my position, but having only a few exceptions is enough to invalidate the theory I cited as an example.
Well, according to New York Times:
I'm not sure, we gained all that much here...
If you neither sung it yourself, nor obtained the singer's permission, you have no right to play it. Seems like a perfectly self-evident rule to me.
I'd say, credibility is the problem plaguing the field.
The experimenters really wanted each experiment to predict their theory... The less precise a science, the worse a problem this is.
In Mathematics, where absolute proofs are possible, and proponents of this or that public policy fiddle not, things are fine. But if a psychologist or, dare I say it, a climate scientist thought, that all odd numbers are prime, for example, they would've staged an experiment: "3, 5, 7" and declared the theory confirmed... Yes, the subsequent "9" is problematic, but "11" and "13" are further confirmations and how much research do you need anyway, skeptic, before you start doing something?
I see, that Slashdot is eager to help in advertising with free (it is, is not it?) promotion.
Semantics. As long as people are free to associate and work together on something, such groups may as well be called "corporations" (or "cooperatives" or "collective farms"). And no, they don't exist on government's sufferance.
Government is a monopoly — and its pretense to "care" is being shattered in Baltimore as we argue — and I don't mean only the still-investigated death of a miscreant in police custody, but the mayor's orders to police to stand down and not protect citizens and their property from the rioting scum.
Nonsense. They are legally obligated to maximize shareholders' value. This makes them care for my money and the only ways for them to get it is to offer me something I want. Government-run service-providers (such as police or Amtrak) don't have these ugly concerns for so base an object as "money" and consequently care not. All you can hope from them is the pretense of caring...
I would've left you to your follies, except your decisions to hand over more and more control over your life to the government empowers it to take the same control over mine.
Sure. Now please explain, how this truism is relevant to the issue at hand. Whose "nose" and whose "fist" are we talking about?
There may be a limit, but we are far from reaching it. FiOS cable runs to my house from the same pole, from which Comcast's cable runs to my neighbors. I think, the same pole can handle 10 or 20 more such cables easily.
You must be a real fan of our collectively-run roads ($2mln per mile!! where I live) and public transit, but I am not. Just what is it, that makes the normally monopoly-abhorring slashdotters all weak in the knees, when it comes to governmental monopoly is beyond me. It is the worst monopoly imaginable...
First of all, I do not accept the "cables are like roads" analogy — they aren't. But even roads can be private and competing. If Tokyo has privately-owned competing subway lines, why can't New York?
Please, don't hate.
That's absolutely true. And Libertarians fought those things tooth-and-nail too.
But a government's folly of subsidizing a business does not give us the right to take it over. We don't own Internet infrastructure any more than we own Tesla's wonder-cars.
Huh? Can you elaborate on the logical chain that lead you to this statement? What sort of freedom is it, that allows the Collective to arbitrarily prohibit an Individual to offer a service?
Typical attitude of those, who only want freedom for themselves, while ready to trample that of others.
Hint: in a free country, businesses exist not because the Collective needs their services, but because their owners choose to pursue happiness that way.
Libertarians remember that and fight any attempts to coerce citizens into some kind of Greater Good[TM].
So cite the parts you find offensive...
Bravo! This sentence alone explains everything about you. Very well put, except for one minor nit: In such context, the word is spelled KKKonservatives. Otherwise perfect.
I do. And one of the requirements for a scientific finding, is that it be reproducible .
Citations?
Before we continue — citations?
Imagine, for a second, the evil RethugliKKKans trying to mandate use of open source software by a government agency — and Slashdot opposing it...
The sad part is that such an obvious question had to be asked. The saddest is that it had to be asked anonymously...
You have to start somewhere.
Even if there is such a bias, what of it? It is not like imposing this rule on the EPA today would prevent imposing it on other departments/agencies later.
Besides, the opponents of the idea do not oppose it on the grounds, that it is not going far enough. Obama is not saying:"I will veto this bill unless the rule covers the entire federal government! No way, no how!!"
That's true about all facts, whether identified by denialists or alarmists.
If you'd like to talk about particular ones, however, please, see my challenge in the post higher up.
The point is that the pontiff's — or, for that matter, any other non-scientist celebrity — agreement with a supposedly scientific argument, adds no more weight to it, than a disagreement by the same celebrity would have removed.
That's exactly the attitude I was ridiculing.
Oh, please. If he instead expressed skepticism, you would've dismissed him as a religious bigot, who believes the Earth was created 5 thousand years ago by a Deity and given to Man to control, and is not a scientist.
Now you are willing to praise him because he agrees with you. Bah...
Skeptics certainly have a clue — it an environment as hostile to skepticism as the climate debate is, any contrarian is always far more educated on the subject, than the following-the-flow crowd. They may still be wrong, but clues they have aplenty.
Why don't we play a game: can you cite two predictions made by global warming "alarmists", that actually came true within 80%? Each citation would have to include a link to the prediction and a link to the confirmation — with the two being 5 years apart or more... The first such predictions have been made decades ago — some are bound to have materialized by now... How about it?
Yes, she can and she will. At least, you produced the sperm while still her husband and would-be father of her children.
If a sperm-donor can be hit for child-support, you would have not a chance. And not just in Kansas, Illinois too only makes exceptions for sperm donated "through medical channels involving a doctor".
It may work the other way too — a donor may get parental rights after an artificial insemination.
Presumably, with the rights comes a child support obligation as well — the two better be inseparable.
These might make sense for taxis, which are/were government-enforced monopolies. But for the viciously competing companies the regulations aren't needed.
And, like all regulations, they inevitably increase costs. That the Statists of Massachusetts will seek to impose such things is not surprising. That Slashdot would applaud them — that's more of a disgrace...
I find it rather ironic, that the same site, which shouts down any attempts to reason that an idea can be owned — and that using it without the owner's permission is illegal and immoral — would be so respectful towards other kinds of information.
If, as the opinion prevailing here holds, "information can not be stolen" because you still have your original copy, what grounds are there to prohibit somebody else to share, what they know about you, with others? On that matter, will you also outlaw gossip?
Except the term coercion implies use of force. As long as you aren't forced to use a web-site despite your disagreement with their EULA, you can not complain of being "coerced".
Movies are. But not the news-reports. And yet, Abu Ghraib scandal — in addition to legal prosecution of the culprits — brought down moral condemnation of not only them, but the entire chain of command all the way up to the then-President.
That nobody said a word to likewise condemn the fictitious Marine Captain Steven Hiller — the dashing hero of the "Independence Day" — suggests, our emotions against the real miscreants were deliberately whipped-up.
Given the harm the manipulation did to the American cause, one can be forgiven for suspecting, it was orchestrated — at least in part — by a hostile party... Would not have been the first time...
"Grid scale" simply can not be more expensive than single-house scale.
It is called "Economy of scale" and although some of such may have limits, beyond which cost of additional units begins to increase, none of the conditions for that would apply in this case.