Just wait till someone using a crackberry while driving pegs a kid (caucasian female in an affluent suburb if you really want media attention) that was crossing a street while im'ing their friends.
Much like the banning (and now attempted banning, HR 1022 I'm looking at you) of guns that look scary, the "for the children" factor would go through the roof if that sort of incident happened. Logic be damned. Existing rules be damned. Its for the children!
School is a prison for kids. It takes the innocent or non-violent offenders, tosses them in with the hardcore lifers, with only the occassional inmate actually learning something beyond skills useful in a life of crime after their mandatory sentence.
Ever watched a wolf pack? They have gestures and postures that indicate dominance or submission. "Ran off with their tail between their legs" ring a bell? Not every interaction is a fight. Our society is the same. Wealth, authority, etc. are part of our rituals for avoiding physical conflict over establishing who's dominant.
Schools are their own little society. Applying your "adult" society to that of children gets you brilliant ideas like zero tolerance. Children are like animals, things are in the here and now, future consequences basically don't matter to them in the heat of the moment, they haven't learned "to reason" yet. Threatening to call little Billy's parents about him bullying Timmy isn't nearly as effective as Timmy giving Billy a shiner. And that one bout of minor physical confrontation may stave off any future encounters. Zero tolerance protects the bully more than the victim since the bully can choose when to torment their victim and effective ones will chose to do so when they are not in danger of punishment or in a manner that limits the threat of punishment. The victim cannot defend themselves without getting themselves in trouble.
And may whatever god you believe in have mercy on your possibly existing soul if the bully is a sportstar or from the right family. "Zero tolerance" in that situation generally gives the bully carte blanche to do as they will. The victim will always be the one in trouble.
You'd be amazed at what can be solved with a minor dust up every once in awhile. Zero tolerance just creates a pressure cooker. In stead of a scuffle and stare down, one side decides to "make it worth it", generally the victim.
I hate to break it to you, but humans are animals, and physical and mental domination and the rituals used to establish it are part of our nature. What zero tolerance does is remove the ritual that evolved to limit the damage caused in establishing dominance.
Common sense has no place in the fight against global warming. We must be reactionary and short sighted if we are to save our future. Oh ya, and get the right people elected or re-elected with no reguard given to anything but their willingness to throw forethought to the wind to "think of the children and the world they will live in".
So are you posting on a Z80 so that you don't waste energy on processor heat? Sure windows takes a week and a half to boot, but that's a preposterous argument when the fate of the world is at stake, right?
How much energy is actually saved once you take into account the amount of extra energy it will cost to properly dispose of mercury using CFL's? Or the generally insane amount of packaging that is wrapped around a CFL?. I sure don't see them coming in cardboard sleeves.
If they do pass this, we need to pass the hat around and buy some congresscritters to get a bill passed that requires all of any beverages that could be imbibed by congressmen be throughly and entirely tested by a certified lab to be sure the ingredients are correct and that there are no illegal substances in it. Think of the congresscritters!
We could irradiate all of the large cities and solve a lot of the world's problems in one whack assuming we were able to get most of their populations. Any survivors would quickly perish once the corner convenience store ran out of the super-ultra-vegan tofu.
I don't want to sound all redneck, but you cityfolk REALLY need to step out of your urban jungles once in awhile. It is your high density population lifestyle causing a fair deal of these supposed problems as it is.
Look at the labels available on eMusic. Look at the labels available on iTunes. Guess which one has the "major" labels. And those major labels would never put a requirement like having all music be drm'd on the seller.
And for the record, I have a subscription to eMusic. I've also purchased albums from iTunes. iTunes selection != eMusic selection.
So how about you fight the record companies and not the store? 1. iPod is not your only choice for portable mp3 players. 2. iTunes is not your only choice for mp3 playing programs. 3. If you have an iPod, ITMS is not your only source for music. 4. If you do not have an iPod, ITMS is still not your only source for music. 5. If you want ITMS music you need either: a. an iPod b. a computer with iTunes c. access to a computer with iTunes and a cd burner. This option will let you play ITMS music through any interface capable of playing whatever format you rip to.
I would love to see Apple pull a Barrett and not do any ITMS or iPod sales to Europe.
Actually, now is a great time for these guys to have pulled a stunt like they did. Actual security is good. Security Theatre is bad. Exposing Security Theatre is a necessary step in moving back towards actual security. People pointing and laughing at Boston is a good thing./tar Boston/point/laugh
I don't know about you, but getting off'd by a terrorist is pretty far down my list of current concerns. Chicken Littles are exactly how the terrorists win.
You know, looking at a map, Boston kinda looks like it has wires sticking out of it and a kinda suspicious bulge... ZOMG! Boston is a bomb! We need to set up a safe perimeter and drop a few nuke counter charges on it. Just to be safe. For the good of the country. Can't let the terrorists win.
So you take that $1.10 per gallon windmill machine, set up a farm up them, and start a water bottling plant. You put the "air harvested" water into expensive looking plastic bottles and run an expensive ad campaign and general media blitz for your water. Sell it for $5 per liter. Wait for a celeb to start drinking your "green water". Then wait for the rich and pretentious to line up in their escalades to get their fix of smugness for the day.
It is hard to break into the "I only pay for name brand tap water" bottled market, since the new plumbing just doesn't give it the same flavor, but with air harvested water, the sky's the limit for the location of your natural 'spring'. If one really wanted to do high end water, you could rig a high altitude plane with these, to collect water unsullied by man.
There will always be some subset of the military that will be willing to fire on the populace.
An armed and possibly hostile populace 'costs' a lot more to occupy a given area than if it was unarmed and docile. Drive the cost of occupation high enough and you can strain the resources of the occupation force. Also, and possibly just as important, is the threat an armed populace poses to individuals in power. The government may go on without a particular official, but the now deceased official would probably prefer to still be alive. This fear adds a high personal cost to any such actions.
Assume you were El Presidente of some banana republic. You thought the peons were getting uppity and wanted to put them down. Would you sleep better if a> the populace had no firearms and no training in their use or b> the populace had firearms and were particularly good at long range shooting against moving mansized targets? To use an apt if trite paraphrase "the government should be afraid of the people".
The sniper will have a line of sight (and arc of travel given longer ranges) to the target. That is needed to make the shot. But in an urban setting, unless the robot is the target, it may not have a clear LOS to paint the shooter's location.
So to counter this new tech, the sniper would need to: A) Obtain American or 'friendly' weapons and ammo. B) Get location information from insurgent infiltrators working as laborers as to where the owls are and figure out their LOS. C) Obtain a rifle capable of accurate fire at ranges beyond 1000 yards.
So would this fall under "Counter-Insurgency Theater"?
A lot of venues (atleast smaller ones like bars) pay what is basically "music insurance". They pay a blanket fee to cover all the royalties that would be owed by any band they have in. Of course, this is insurance in the same vein as paying Vinny his money to keep your business from "accidentally" starting on fire, this week.
What ever happened to good ol' flares, chaff, and evasive manuvers?
If every jet is going to have this guidance confusing laser on it, all the terrorists need to do is switch to laser guided. No need for any spotters to track the plane when the plane basically paints a pathway o' death to itself.
Wasn't there a package called snowstorm or something similar that was used by military cargo plans for automated detection and flare/chaff response?
Slashdot Mirror
Just wait till someone using a crackberry while driving pegs a kid (caucasian female in an affluent suburb if you really want media attention) that was crossing a street while im'ing their friends.
Much like the banning (and now attempted banning, HR 1022 I'm looking at you) of guns that look scary, the "for the children" factor would go through the roof if that sort of incident happened. Logic be damned. Existing rules be damned. Its for the children!
School is a prison for kids. It takes the innocent or non-violent offenders, tosses them in with the hardcore lifers, with only the occassional inmate actually learning something beyond skills useful in a life of crime after their mandatory sentence.
Our "society" is part of the ritual of dominance.
Ever watched a wolf pack? They have gestures and postures that indicate dominance or submission. "Ran off with their tail between their legs" ring a bell? Not every interaction is a fight. Our society is the same. Wealth, authority, etc. are part of our rituals for avoiding physical conflict over establishing who's dominant.
Schools are their own little society. Applying your "adult" society to that of children gets you brilliant ideas like zero tolerance. Children are like animals, things are in the here and now, future consequences basically don't matter to them in the heat of the moment, they haven't learned "to reason" yet. Threatening to call little Billy's parents about him bullying Timmy isn't nearly as effective as Timmy giving Billy a shiner. And that one bout of minor physical confrontation may stave off any future encounters. Zero tolerance protects the bully more than the victim since the bully can choose when to torment their victim and effective ones will chose to do so when they are not in danger of punishment or in a manner that limits the threat of punishment. The victim cannot defend themselves without getting themselves in trouble.
And may whatever god you believe in have mercy on your possibly existing soul if the bully is a sportstar or from the right family. "Zero tolerance" in that situation generally gives the bully carte blanche to do as they will. The victim will always be the one in trouble.
You'd be amazed at what can be solved with a minor dust up every once in awhile. Zero tolerance just creates a pressure cooker. In stead of a scuffle and stare down, one side decides to "make it worth it", generally the victim.
I hate to break it to you, but humans are animals, and physical and mental domination and the rituals used to establish it are part of our nature. What zero tolerance does is remove the ritual that evolved to limit the damage caused in establishing dominance.
Common sense has no place in the fight against global warming. We must be reactionary and short sighted if we are to save our future. Oh ya, and get the right people elected or re-elected with no reguard given to anything but their willingness to throw forethought to the wind to "think of the children and the world they will live in".
So are you posting on a Z80 so that you don't waste energy on processor heat? Sure windows takes a week and a half to boot, but that's a preposterous argument when the fate of the world is at stake, right?
How much energy is actually saved once you take into account the amount of extra energy it will cost to properly dispose of mercury using CFL's? Or the generally insane amount of packaging that is wrapped around a CFL?. I sure don't see them coming in cardboard sleeves.
If they do pass this, we need to pass the hat around and buy some congresscritters to get a bill passed that requires all of any beverages that could be imbibed by congressmen be throughly and entirely tested by a certified lab to be sure the ingredients are correct and that there are no illegal substances in it. Think of the congresscritters!
We could irradiate all of the large cities and solve a lot of the world's problems in one whack assuming we were able to get most of their populations. Any survivors would quickly perish once the corner convenience store ran out of the super-ultra-vegan tofu.
I don't want to sound all redneck, but you cityfolk REALLY need to step out of your urban jungles once in awhile. It is your high density population lifestyle causing a fair deal of these supposed problems as it is.
I wouln't call it lock in when you just have to 1> burn the tracks to cd. 2> import to format of choice, perhaps even a lossless format.
It's more of a "the door is closed, just turn the handle to get out" than a lock in.
And if you can't play your iTunes on your $5 street corner special jPod you can't sue the... oh wait.
Hmm, the Molly Millions look might be coming (back?) into style.
Just an FYI, you can wipe your list of authorized computers from your account page in iTunes.
Look at the labels available on eMusic. Look at the labels available on iTunes. Guess which one has the "major" labels. And those major labels would never put a requirement like having all music be drm'd on the seller.
And for the record, I have a subscription to eMusic. I've also purchased albums from iTunes. iTunes selection != eMusic selection.
So how about you fight the record companies and not the store?
1. iPod is not your only choice for portable mp3 players.
2. iTunes is not your only choice for mp3 playing programs.
3. If you have an iPod, ITMS is not your only source for music.
4. If you do not have an iPod, ITMS is still not your only source for music.
5. If you want ITMS music you need either:
a. an iPod
b. a computer with iTunes
c. access to a computer with iTunes and a cd burner. This option will let you play ITMS music through any interface capable of playing whatever format you rip to.
I would love to see Apple pull a Barrett and not do any ITMS or iPod sales to Europe.
Actually, now is a great time for these guys to have pulled a stunt like they did. Actual security is good. Security Theatre is bad. Exposing Security Theatre is a necessary step in moving back towards actual security. People pointing and laughing at Boston is a good thing. /tar Boston /point /laugh
I don't know about you, but getting off'd by a terrorist is pretty far down my list of current concerns. Chicken Littles are exactly how the terrorists win.
You know, looking at a map, Boston kinda looks like it has wires sticking out of it and a kinda suspicious bulge... ZOMG! Boston is a bomb! We need to set up a safe perimeter and drop a few nuke counter charges on it. Just to be safe. For the good of the country. Can't let the terrorists win.
So you take that $1.10 per gallon windmill machine, set up a farm up them, and start a water bottling plant. You put the "air harvested" water into expensive looking plastic bottles and run an expensive ad campaign and general media blitz for your water. Sell it for $5 per liter. Wait for a celeb to start drinking your "green water". Then wait for the rich and pretentious to line up in their escalades to get their fix of smugness for the day.
It is hard to break into the "I only pay for name brand tap water" bottled market, since the new plumbing just doesn't give it the same flavor, but with air harvested water, the sky's the limit for the location of your natural 'spring'. If one really wanted to do high end water, you could rig a high altitude plane with these, to collect water unsullied by man.
Ya, I hate that I've been forced to have an iPod because all the digital music in the world, nay, universe is available only through iTunes...
Perhaps if you don't have an iPod <warcraft>l2notitunes or l2burnthenripcd </warcraft>.
Its like saying you have a mimeograph and want to sue xerox because their toner cartridges aren't compatible with your equipment.
There will always be some subset of the military that will be willing to fire on the populace.
An armed and possibly hostile populace 'costs' a lot more to occupy a given area than if it was unarmed and docile. Drive the cost of occupation high enough and you can strain the resources of the occupation force. Also, and possibly just as important, is the threat an armed populace poses to individuals in power. The government may go on without a particular official, but the now deceased official would probably prefer to still be alive. This fear adds a high personal cost to any such actions.
Assume you were El Presidente of some banana republic. You thought the peons were getting uppity and wanted to put them down. Would you sleep better if a> the populace had no firearms and no training in their use or b> the populace had firearms and were particularly good at long range shooting against moving mansized targets? To use an apt if trite paraphrase "the government should be afraid of the people".
If the US gov't or US owned or friendly corporation hires them, they are security contractors. If hired by anyone else, they are mercenaries.
The sniper will have a line of sight (and arc of travel given longer ranges) to the target. That is needed to make the shot. But in an urban setting, unless the robot is the target, it may not have a clear LOS to paint the shooter's location.
So to counter this new tech, the sniper would need to:
A) Obtain American or 'friendly' weapons and ammo.
B) Get location information from insurgent infiltrators working as laborers as to where the owls are and figure out their LOS.
C) Obtain a rifle capable of accurate fire at ranges beyond 1000 yards.
So would this fall under "Counter-Insurgency Theater"?
A lot of venues (atleast smaller ones like bars) pay what is basically "music insurance". They pay a blanket fee to cover all the royalties that would be owed by any band they have in. Of course, this is insurance in the same vein as paying Vinny his money to keep your business from "accidentally" starting on fire, this week.
What ever happened to good ol' flares, chaff, and evasive manuvers?
If every jet is going to have this guidance confusing laser on it, all the terrorists need to do is switch to laser guided. No need for any spotters to track the plane when the plane basically paints a pathway o' death to itself.
Wasn't there a package called snowstorm or something similar that was used by military cargo plans for automated detection and flare/chaff response?