> I'll believe its real space the moment I see someone drifting backwards.
This was touched upon in the second movie, where Spock commented on Khan's two-dimensional thinking in the cat-and-mouse hunt in that gas cloud, and the battle was won by piloting the Enterprise downward (relative to its orientation) and then back up behind the Reliant. Still, it's fairly easy to explain banking in spacecraft using relative inertia. When a spacecraft turns, the body of its pilot tries to continue in a straight line. Banking the craft causes the pilot to feel the change in direction as being pressed downward into the seat, which is both familiar and less likely to cause a g-force related blackout. On larger ships, it could be seen the same way, allowing the inertial dampers to work less to keep the crew vertical while the ship turns, and there were a number of occasions where large craft turned by spinning on center, as one would expect from spacecraft. Think of the opening credits on later versions of the above-mentioned DS9, where the Defiant backs off from the docking port and spins around its center to get to its exit heading, while drifting directly away from the station.
There are lots of failings in Star Trek, but they do make at least some effort, and one must remember that it's a TV show/movie, so entertainment value sometimes trumps reality (like when one hears the explosions ripping apart yet another version of the Enterprise, or when a shock wave moving faster than warp 3 strikes a ship and swats it along instead of pulverizing it or crushing it like a soda can). Play along.
> Gator publicly announces and states in both their EULA and on their website (and GAINs website) everything they do with the data they collect. They have always taken a full disclosure policy. If someone walks behind you with a megaphone announcing every move you make, they aren't much of a spy, are they? Same thing.
Two things to note: if they're collecting information about you, they're "spying" in the dictionary sense of the word. Someone behind me with a bullhorn is not very secretive, but although secrecy is implied by the term spying, it's not necessary. You can spy on someone out in the open. Second, if I turned around and asked the guy with the bullhorn to leave, and he responded by switching to holding up placards behind me, then I'd say he's certainly spying at that point. To extend the analogy to Gator, I tried their uninstall process, from their website. Guess what? It told me that it ran, but it didn't remove Gator from my test system. So, I tried it on another bench system, and it didn't work there, either. You can label that mere anecdote, but I take it as evidence that their uninstall process would fail on at least some systems run by those less educated in computers than me. Suddenly, it's not so out-in-the-open any more, eh?
> I can disprove anything people say just by pointing them to go to a download page and read what comes up on the front-page.
Their download page (well, okay, their policy page) states that the software can be uninstalled by following their instructions. How does that disprove my allegation that they're running spyware? If they're mistaken or lying about that, what else about their claims has such strong proof? Am I to assume that everything they say is true just because it's on their web site?
> This is a charter school--a privately run school that applies capitalism's "someone doing it for a profit will do it better" principle to higher education.
Charter schools are not private schools, and elementary schools are not higher education. A charter school is a public school with a specialized charter. Google it and you'll find a mass of optimistic and not-so-optimistic descriptions of charter schools.
> My 7th grade son has to carry his ID card whenever he is on school grounds. If he doesn't have it, we are called and either we deliver the ID or take him home.
And they're doing this in the name of security, correct? So, every time he loses his ID card, you have to drop what you're doing to act on it, pony up $20.00 and he misses a day of school? What if the local bully decides to take his card from him every week? Is this really a sensible solution at all? If he loses his ID on the day of a big test, does he get the chance to make it up? Can you think of ways this could be abused?
It sounds like you need to reconsider the school your son attends. When their need to track him trumps his learning, the system needs revision.
Why would a bully carry the card, and what would it matter? By the article's description, it works only within 20 inches, and what they'd do anyway is steal your card and discard or destroy it so you'll get in trouble for not having it, or not checking in with it.
Firstly, I think you were mismoderated, because I didn't see this as flamebait at all. That said:
> I'm continuously surprised at the lack of respect for IP laws on/. No matter how you justify it, taking copyrighted material without paying for it is not legal. Nor should it be legal.
In turn, I'm continuously surprised at the lack of respect for IP laws in Congress. No matter how they justify it, extending copyright just to protect a corporation's income stream should be reconsidered. I find it telling that every time the expiration date for Mickey Mouse's copyright approaches, Walt Disney, Inc. feeds a bucket of money into copyright extension laws. I understand why WDInc wants to preserve exclusive rights to Mickey, but I fail to see how that is of any benefit to society at large, which was the reason put forward upon the creation of copyright in the first place. Mickey's creator made a living fortune from him, as did his children, but now it's just a company using a hyperextended law to protect their money stream.
This is the main problem I have with copyright. I think copyright as it was originally intended is a very good idea, because some protection does indeed afford authors and other artists leeway in creating works. But I believe that the idea has been abused by organizations like the RIAA and MPAA far beyond meaningful process, which is why I have so little respect for IP laws. If I thought that IP laws were anything other than a farcical set of laws purchased by these companies for their own express benefit, and if I though that there was anything that the everyman could do in the face of the big money that drove creation of these laws, then I might be more respectful of them.
> This is how a free market works. If you don't like the method in which a product is offered, and enough people agree with you, then an alternate method will evolve. ITunes is a perfect example.
In fact, an alternate method has evolved. The fact that the alternate method that has become so popular (by their words) is also against the law is evidence that an awful lot of people agree that copyright laws are broken. When so many people break a law that the affected parties feel they need to educate 5th to 9th graders that it's wrong, it's time to reexamine why it's illegal to begin with. Many folk smarter than me have analyzed the trends, but I stand on my observation that there are many people who will share files with impunity who would never consider going to a record store and shoplifting the CD to be acceptable. This indicates a tendency to think there's some moral difference here. State that there isn't just because the law says there isn't, and you fall into the same trap that the RIAA/MPAA have.
> Hey man, lighten up:) I was hoping that opening line was going to be quite easy to identify as an attempt to be humorous, but apparently I failed on all accounts.
Your failure to be humorous is most certainly not your fault. It's the fault of a large segment of the population who really, honestly believe what you said would happen. I ask forgiveness for opening fire so quickly, but I'm trigger-happy because I've had to have this argument so many times that it's hard to tell when there's a tongue in cheek.
> I applaud your belief in this technology, although I take offense to your suggestion that I didn't RTFA. I did infact read the article before I commented, but unlike you I have a hard time believing any system to be 100% failsafe.
I have never thought any system to be fail safe, and this system is no different than that. The argument that I have is in the severity of failure, which I'll address below. Keep reading.
> I've worked with lots of systems supposedly failsafe and I've experienced most of them fail at some point. The difference between failure in a locking clamp of a German Leopard Attack Bridge and a failure in a nuclear reactor is that the German attack bridge falls to the ground and a nuclear reactor failing has a very high chance of contaminating the surroundings quickly.
This is the part that irked me. Firstly, fail-safe does not mean (nor is it meant to imply) fail-proof. In fact, every nuclear reactor ever built was designed to handle failure. As has been seen, there have been problems with this, but in every case, the design was put together with the idea that it could fail, and safeguards were instituted. The two major failures in safeguards (Idaho Falls and Chernobyl) have been directly accredited to operators doing something out of specs without using the built in failsafe systems. This Toshiba system is also designed to be fail-safe, which means that if it fails it fails in such a way as not to comtaminate its surroundings. Secondly, This system does not have a high chance of contaminating the surroundings. In fact, it's virtually impossible, based on the design. The reactor has a subcritical mass of reactant, contained in a vessel that could withstand internal pressures far in excess of anything this system could ever produce, under any circumstances. It's designed so that if it fails, it simply stops running, but it simply cannot "melt down" like base-pile reactors because there's not enough uranium to produce a self-sustaining reaction. This is the reason I accused you of not reading the article. The failure you seem to be most afraid of is forbidden not by assumption, but by the laws of physics.
> Your premise is that all foreseen circumstances have been safeguarded. My premise is that some unforseen circumstance will happen anyway.
My premise indeed, but I will temper that by saying that the unforseen premises needed to break this particular system is such a way as to expose the pile would be severe enough that the extra damage wouldn't matter. While it's true that a concerted effort to destroy the reactor could cause it to spill radiation, such an attack would need to be severe enough that the attacker would be better off attacking the village directly, in terms of damage done. I understand that unforseen circumstances can occur, but based on the reactor's design, the forces needed would be so extreme that reactor damage would be a secondary concern.
> I can just picture the breakdown in the middle of a cold Alaskan night, Papa running around glowing green, shouting for Mama to fetch him the anti-radiation suit.
Yeah, I can picture that, too. The question is what that picture has to do with this device.
Firstly, it's subcritical, and by its design must remain subcritical. It produces heat externally, not ionizing radiation. Second, it would require busting the containment vessel to leak radiation at all, and as I said before, it's not going to go critical, so there's no internal force that will do that. Third, the amount of external damage it would need to sustain to break open would be so severe that anyone capable of inflicting that sort of force on it would do more damage inflicting it on the village directly.
The problem they have when it breaks is that it stops running. I assume they'll have standard fuel-fired generators to back it up, and so rushing to the site isn't really an issue.
You can learn all of this stuff yourself by reading the article. Do so before you comment further, please.
> Ram the pipes coming out of the ground with a pickup. Let blow some steam out. Drop grenade.
Listen to grenade go *BOOM*. Realize that one needs to read up on nuclear reactors.
You really don't know the first thing about how these things work, do you? What would you possibly hope to accomplish by dropping a grenade into the secondary coolant loop, other than stopping power output, which would be accomplished by the truck hitting the pipes?
> There was a time in your life when, in fact, you DID NOT KNOW that this kind of food would make you fat. Then, at some point, you learned it.
The point is, many people never learn it.
Fine, you say, that's their own fault for not learning it. But in saying this, you are assuming that they had the same opportunity to learn it as you. And it is an undeniable fact that not everyone has the same access to knowledge and education in this country.
Sorry, but your step back for perspective wasn't large enough. While you're quite right that not everyone has access to the same quality of education, this particular piece of information is (and has been for some time) very widely available. Perhaps some schools aren't doing a good job of teaching health education, but one needs only watch one or two episodes of Oprah, or the evening news, to hear that fatty foods make one gain weight, and that a low fat diet will prevent that. Then, it's an easy leap to ask for nutrition information from any fast food joint around. Heck, they have it printed up on handouts so you don't tie up a counter person asking those questions. Since obesity in all social strata outstrips the illiteracy rate, it's a reasonable conclusion that the information is widely enough available for people to make educated decisions.
> It is no coincidence the prevalence of obesity in the lower class is higher than it is, say, in your social stratum.
As is usual for arguments like this, the problem is rather more complex than you would make it. In survey after survey, the reason people in all social strata eat fast food is convenience. It overarches every other given reason by a wide margin. Couple that with the fact that people in lower income groups tend to have less free time, and suddenly you have a completely valid reason for higher fast food consumption that has little to do with a conspiracy on the part of the fast food producers. While the ad campaigns are certainly a part of the problem, it's not rational to imply (as you have) that they're even the majority of the problem without considering other factors.
> They are in the business of selling food, and the more food they sell, the more money they make. So they will use all the advertising tricks in the book to encourage people to buy more...
Wow. And when you go to buy a car, there are people who actually make money by selling you accessories and rustproofing and dealer financing, and they'll use all the advertising tricks in the book to encourage people to buy more...
...and yet we don't think that people who spent too much on a car should be able to sue the dealership. I'm sorry, but this falls firmly under the concept of "caveat emptor". Basic health education is not lacking in the U.S., and it takes not a lot of effort to learn what's healthy to eat and what isn't. Because it's not a big secret that too much fat in your diet will make you gain weight, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask people to examine what they eat, and if you ask the counter person about nutrition information, that person will hand you a sheet that contains all of the nutrition information you need to see that the burgers are very high in fat. In short, the fact that McDonald's portrays their food in the best possible light does not excuse you from responsibility for examining their presentation with a critical eye.
> Properly mount devices! err, or at least, place them on an anti-static bag. Or not on top of a static generator like the power supply.
Oops, lesson not quite learned, here. It wasn't static electricity that killed that drive, it was most likely a short circuit caused by laying the drive on a flat metal surface. The lesson here (other than mounting the drive, which is a good practice) is to put it on something non-conductive, like a folded sheet of paper or foam or something. By its very design, the power supply doesn't generate static electricity, and laying the drive on a static bag would likely have killed it just as dead as what happened.
> Please elaborate. When would you consider him "reformed"? When he's crouched on his broken
kneecaps, begging for your forgiveness for sending you a few unsolicited mails?
How about when he's paid back the money for all of the bandwidth he stole, or makes some kind of restitution (community service or the like) to repay all the time wasted by everyone he bombarded?
That'd be a start, but he doesn't seem to be interested in any of that. The only reason he's not spamming any longer is that AOL's lawyers are holding a financial gun to his head. That's not reformed, in any sense I'll accept.
> Yes, fraud, not breach of contract. I still stand behind my insults, albeit slightly further behind, being later in the day and I'm more awake.
Take another step back. It's both fraud and breach of contract. Fraud is a criminal charge, levelled by the district attorney. Breach of contract is a civil charge, pressed by the affected party (in this case, the merchant that was defrauded). The contract she'd be breaching is the contract of sale, wherein she accepted goods or services and promised payment. Her signature (or lack of signature) is not relevant in any way to that contract, which case after case has established as valid even when implied. If she receives goods or services, and then doesn't pay for them, she's breached contract. If she used a known-invalid credit card to defraud the merchant, she has also committed fraud.
> The whole fucking point is SHE DIDN'T SIGN
UP FOR THE CARD -- SHE DID NOT SIGN TO HAVE A CREDIT CARD -- SHE DID NOT SIGN ANY CONTRACT. Make sure you know what you're talking about before playing "I'm so fucking smart."
Take your own advice. Not only are you incorrect about your original statement (I addressed this in another post), but you're wrong on this specific point as well. When you buy something on a credit card, with very, very few exceptions, you have to sign your name to the credit slip. If you don't sign, in most cases the merchant won't sell you anything, and they'll call the police if you've already received service (like not signing the slip at a restaurant). Printed on the form, in most cases right over the signature line, there's a statement to the effect of "I agree to be bound by the cardholder agreement". Even if she didn't sign the original application, by signing even one of these slips, she'd have signed a contract in a legal sense. If she only used the card where no signature is required, like pay-at-the-pump stations, she'd still be committing fraud just by presenting the card, so my post above applies.
> > The original comment was that she would have no contractual obligation for the debt
> And that is correct. The key word is contractual. They never signed a contract, therefore there is no contractual obligation, although there sure as hell is a legal obligation. I should have been clearer in my reply.
Sorry, but you'd still have been wrong. You state that she never signed a contract with the credit card company, so she has no contractual obligation to repay the money. However, the original statement (and its intent, in telling her she could use the card with impunity) stated she'd have no contractual obligation to anybody at all. That's incorrect, since the contract that would be important would still be the contract of sale with the merchant. You can say that's just a point of semantics, but then how would you reconcile that with the parent poster's suggested action to run up a balance that (he states) she would never have to pay?
> Except, that's exactly how it works. It's not illegal for me to sign you up for a credit card...
This is indeed illegal. Applying for credit in someone else's name is against the law (assuming you hold no power of attorney for that person), because if you do it without their explicit approval, you are indeed defrauding the credit issuer, by giving them information that they reasonably believe represents that person's interest to borrow money, and their acceptance of the terms of repayment. That's why the signature is required on the form, and if the credit card company accepts the application without the signature, then both you and they are in the wrong.
> It *might* be illegal if I was maliciously representing myself as you in order to defraud someone else or damage your character, but it's not illegal for me to go down to the city dump, get an address off an envelope, and fill out a credit card app with it (minus signature, which would be forgery).
See above. It is specifically illegal, because you are misrepresenting me in order to defraud the credit issuer.
> The CC company isn't prohibited from gathering personal information in any legal manner, and if they want to stoop to rooting around in the bins at the mall, whatever. It's still legal. No contract is necessary, and from the description none was inferred.
They can collect all the information they want. That's not the problem. The problem is that they acted on that information to issue credit without her explicit approval, and that's a violation of law.
> A lawsuit is frivolous and an abdication of personal responsibility following a boneheaded mistake.
In the case of the spam and junk mail, you're absolutely correct. But in the case of the credit card she now has that she never wanted, you're entirely wrong. That credit card represents a significant liability to her, and she did not authorize the creation of the account. If she applied for a mortgage, that credit line would fall into consideration, even though she didn't want it. If someone stole the number and used it, she could face a huge legal battle to recover her credit. If the company followed any sort of standard procedure, they requested credit reports on her with no authority to do so (remember, the signature on the form is what authorizes them to do credit checks, and doing the checks without the signature is actionable). Therefore, she can charge them with these violations, and she should do so because what they did was an egregious failure on their part to follow their own procedures, to the possible detriment of her credit rating.
> No it isn't. It's still illegal, but easy to lie about. ("It wasn't me, I never wrote that information. Someone was impersonating me.")
Yes, my statement is correct. The original comment was that she would have no contractual obligation for the debt, and I stated that that's not true. Using fraud (using a known-invalid card) and then perjury (when questioned, she'd lie about using the card) does not excuse the obligation for repayment. She may get out of paying the bill, but getting out of a contract by committing two felonies doesn't nullify the contract.
> Don't contribute to the lawsuit nonsense... suck it up and live with your mistake.
Don't contribute to the "public property" nonsense, suck it up and admit you don't understand the violation. The fact that she threw the form whole into the trash means that she cannot expect Fourth Amendment protection for the information. It does not constitute carte blanche on the part of any company to do what they wish with it, and it most certainly does not give any entity the right to use the information to enter her into a contract without her permission. The fact that someone took her information (remember, no signature means no agreement to the terms, in a legal sense) and entered the application means that the contract is invalid. Tha fact that it was accepted by the credit card issuer does not remove the fact that it was submitted without her permission.
By your logic, I could look your name, address and other pertinent information up on the Internet, and if you were careless enough to have made public enough information that I can complete one of these forms, I can sign you up for a credit card, and you'd have to take your own advice and suck it up. That's just not how it works. She should proceed with seeking legal resourse in this case.
Slashdot Mirror
> I'll believe its real space the moment I see someone drifting backwards.
This was touched upon in the second movie, where Spock commented on Khan's two-dimensional thinking in the cat-and-mouse hunt in that gas cloud, and the battle was won by piloting the Enterprise downward (relative to its orientation) and then back up behind the Reliant. Still, it's fairly easy to explain banking in spacecraft using relative inertia. When a spacecraft turns, the body of its pilot tries to continue in a straight line. Banking the craft causes the pilot to feel the change in direction as being pressed downward into the seat, which is both familiar and less likely to cause a g-force related blackout. On larger ships, it could be seen the same way, allowing the inertial dampers to work less to keep the crew vertical while the ship turns, and there were a number of occasions where large craft turned by spinning on center, as one would expect from spacecraft. Think of the opening credits on later versions of the above-mentioned DS9, where the Defiant backs off from the docking port and spins around its center to get to its exit heading, while drifting directly away from the station.
There are lots of failings in Star Trek, but they do make at least some effort, and one must remember that it's a TV show/movie, so entertainment value sometimes trumps reality (like when one hears the explosions ripping apart yet another version of the Enterprise, or when a shock wave moving faster than warp 3 strikes a ship and swats it along instead of pulverizing it or crushing it like a soda can). Play along.
Virg
> Gator publicly announces and states in both their EULA and on their website (and GAINs website) everything they do with the data they collect. They have always taken a full disclosure policy. If someone walks behind you with a megaphone announcing every move you make, they aren't much of a spy, are they? Same thing.
Two things to note: if they're collecting information about you, they're "spying" in the dictionary sense of the word. Someone behind me with a bullhorn is not very secretive, but although secrecy is implied by the term spying, it's not necessary. You can spy on someone out in the open. Second, if I turned around and asked the guy with the bullhorn to leave, and he responded by switching to holding up placards behind me, then I'd say he's certainly spying at that point. To extend the analogy to Gator, I tried their uninstall process, from their website. Guess what? It told me that it ran, but it didn't remove Gator from my test system. So, I tried it on another bench system, and it didn't work there, either. You can label that mere anecdote, but I take it as evidence that their uninstall process would fail on at least some systems run by those less educated in computers than me. Suddenly, it's not so out-in-the-open any more, eh?
> I can disprove anything people say just by pointing them to go to a download page and read what comes up on the front-page.
Their download page (well, okay, their policy page) states that the software can be uninstalled by following their instructions. How does that disprove my allegation that they're running spyware? If they're mistaken or lying about that, what else about their claims has such strong proof? Am I to assume that everything they say is true just because it's on their web site?
Virg
> This is a charter school--a privately run school that applies capitalism's "someone doing it for a profit will do it better" principle to higher education.
Charter schools are not private schools, and elementary schools are not higher education. A charter school is a public school with a specialized charter. Google it and you'll find a mass of optimistic and not-so-optimistic descriptions of charter schools.
Virg
> My 7th grade son has to carry his ID card whenever he is on school grounds. If he doesn't have it, we are called and either we deliver the ID or take him home.
And they're doing this in the name of security, correct? So, every time he loses his ID card, you have to drop what you're doing to act on it, pony up $20.00 and he misses a day of school? What if the local bully decides to take his card from him every week? Is this really a sensible solution at all? If he loses his ID on the day of a big test, does he get the chance to make it up? Can you think of ways this could be abused?
It sounds like you need to reconsider the school your son attends. When their need to track him trumps his learning, the system needs revision.
Virg
Why would a bully carry the card, and what would it matter? By the article's description, it works only within 20 inches, and what they'd do anyway is steal your card and discard or destroy it so you'll get in trouble for not having it, or not checking in with it.
Virg
Firstly, I think you were mismoderated, because I didn't see this as flamebait at all. That said:
/. No matter how you justify it, taking copyrighted material without paying for it is not legal. Nor should it be legal.
> I'm continuously surprised at the lack of respect for IP laws on
In turn, I'm continuously surprised at the lack of respect for IP laws in Congress. No matter how they justify it, extending copyright just to protect a corporation's income stream should be reconsidered. I find it telling that every time the expiration date for Mickey Mouse's copyright approaches, Walt Disney, Inc. feeds a bucket of money into copyright extension laws. I understand why WDInc wants to preserve exclusive rights to Mickey, but I fail to see how that is of any benefit to society at large, which was the reason put forward upon the creation of copyright in the first place. Mickey's creator made a living fortune from him, as did his children, but now it's just a company using a hyperextended law to protect their money stream.
This is the main problem I have with copyright. I think copyright as it was originally intended is a very good idea, because some protection does indeed afford authors and other artists leeway in creating works. But I believe that the idea has been abused by organizations like the RIAA and MPAA far beyond meaningful process, which is why I have so little respect for IP laws. If I thought that IP laws were anything other than a farcical set of laws purchased by these companies for their own express benefit, and if I though that there was anything that the everyman could do in the face of the big money that drove creation of these laws, then I might be more respectful of them.
> This is how a free market works. If you don't like the method in which a product is offered, and enough people agree with you, then an alternate method will evolve. ITunes is a perfect example.
In fact, an alternate method has evolved. The fact that the alternate method that has become so popular (by their words) is also against the law is evidence that an awful lot of people agree that copyright laws are broken. When so many people break a law that the affected parties feel they need to educate 5th to 9th graders that it's wrong, it's time to reexamine why it's illegal to begin with. Many folk smarter than me have analyzed the trends, but I stand on my observation that there are many people who will share files with impunity who would never consider going to a record store and shoplifting the CD to be acceptable. This indicates a tendency to think there's some moral difference here. State that there isn't just because the law says there isn't, and you fall into the same trap that the RIAA/MPAA have.
Virg
...just how many people are old enough to remember this reference.
Virg
> Hey man, lighten up :) I was hoping that opening line was going to be quite easy to identify as an attempt to be humorous, but apparently I failed on all accounts.
Your failure to be humorous is most certainly not your fault. It's the fault of a large segment of the population who really, honestly believe what you said would happen. I ask forgiveness for opening fire so quickly, but I'm trigger-happy because I've had to have this argument so many times that it's hard to tell when there's a tongue in cheek.
> I applaud your belief in this technology, although I take offense to your suggestion that I didn't RTFA. I did infact read the article before I commented, but unlike you I have a hard time believing any system to be 100% failsafe.
I have never thought any system to be fail safe, and this system is no different than that. The argument that I have is in the severity of failure, which I'll address below. Keep reading.
> I've worked with lots of systems supposedly failsafe and I've experienced most of them fail at some point. The difference between failure in a locking clamp of a German Leopard Attack Bridge and a failure in a nuclear reactor is that the German attack bridge falls to the ground and a nuclear reactor failing has a very high chance of contaminating the surroundings quickly.
This is the part that irked me. Firstly, fail-safe does not mean (nor is it meant to imply) fail-proof. In fact, every nuclear reactor ever built was designed to handle failure. As has been seen, there have been problems with this, but in every case, the design was put together with the idea that it could fail, and safeguards were instituted. The two major failures in safeguards (Idaho Falls and Chernobyl) have been directly accredited to operators doing something out of specs without using the built in failsafe systems. This Toshiba system is also designed to be fail-safe, which means that if it fails it fails in such a way as not to comtaminate its surroundings. Secondly, This system does not have a high chance of contaminating the surroundings. In fact, it's virtually impossible, based on the design. The reactor has a subcritical mass of reactant, contained in a vessel that could withstand internal pressures far in excess of anything this system could ever produce, under any circumstances. It's designed so that if it fails, it simply stops running, but it simply cannot "melt down" like base-pile reactors because there's not enough uranium to produce a self-sustaining reaction. This is the reason I accused you of not reading the article. The failure you seem to be most afraid of is forbidden not by assumption, but by the laws of physics.
> Your premise is that all foreseen circumstances have been safeguarded. My premise is that some unforseen circumstance will happen anyway.
My premise indeed, but I will temper that by saying that the unforseen premises needed to break this particular system is such a way as to expose the pile would be severe enough that the extra damage wouldn't matter. While it's true that a concerted effort to destroy the reactor could cause it to spill radiation, such an attack would need to be severe enough that the attacker would be better off attacking the village directly, in terms of damage done. I understand that unforseen circumstances can occur, but based on the reactor's design, the forces needed would be so extreme that reactor damage would be a secondary concern.
Virg
> I can just picture the breakdown in the middle of a cold Alaskan night, Papa running around glowing green, shouting for Mama to fetch him the anti-radiation suit.
Yeah, I can picture that, too. The question is what that picture has to do with this device.
Firstly, it's subcritical, and by its design must remain subcritical. It produces heat externally, not ionizing radiation. Second, it would require busting the containment vessel to leak radiation at all, and as I said before, it's not going to go critical, so there's no internal force that will do that. Third, the amount of external damage it would need to sustain to break open would be so severe that anyone capable of inflicting that sort of force on it would do more damage inflicting it on the village directly.
The problem they have when it breaks is that it stops running. I assume they'll have standard fuel-fired generators to back it up, and so rushing to the site isn't really an issue.
You can learn all of this stuff yourself by reading the article. Do so before you comment further, please.
Virg
> Ram the pipes coming out of the ground with a pickup. Let blow some steam out. Drop grenade.
Listen to grenade go *BOOM*. Realize that one needs to read up on nuclear reactors.
You really don't know the first thing about how these things work, do you? What would you possibly hope to accomplish by dropping a grenade into the secondary coolant loop, other than stopping power output, which would be accomplished by the truck hitting the pipes?
Virg
> Popel means booger.
Thanks! You have no idea how useful that's going to be.
Virg
> There was a time in your life when, in fact, you DID NOT KNOW that this kind of food would make you fat. Then, at some point, you learned it.
The point is, many people never learn it.
Fine, you say, that's their own fault for not learning it. But in saying this, you are assuming that they had the same opportunity to learn it as you. And it is an undeniable fact that not everyone has the same access to knowledge and education in this country.
Sorry, but your step back for perspective wasn't large enough. While you're quite right that not everyone has access to the same quality of education, this particular piece of information is (and has been for some time) very widely available. Perhaps some schools aren't doing a good job of teaching health education, but one needs only watch one or two episodes of Oprah, or the evening news, to hear that fatty foods make one gain weight, and that a low fat diet will prevent that. Then, it's an easy leap to ask for nutrition information from any fast food joint around. Heck, they have it printed up on handouts so you don't tie up a counter person asking those questions. Since obesity in all social strata outstrips the illiteracy rate, it's a reasonable conclusion that the information is widely enough available for people to make educated decisions.
> It is no coincidence the prevalence of obesity in the lower class is higher than it is, say, in your social stratum.
As is usual for arguments like this, the problem is rather more complex than you would make it. In survey after survey, the reason people in all social strata eat fast food is convenience. It overarches every other given reason by a wide margin. Couple that with the fact that people in lower income groups tend to have less free time, and suddenly you have a completely valid reason for higher fast food consumption that has little to do with a conspiracy on the part of the fast food producers. While the ad campaigns are certainly a part of the problem, it's not rational to imply (as you have) that they're even the majority of the problem without considering other factors.
Virg
> They are in the business of selling food, and the more food they sell, the more money they make. So they will use all the advertising tricks in the book to encourage people to buy more...
...and yet we don't think that people who spent too much on a car should be able to sue the dealership. I'm sorry, but this falls firmly under the concept of "caveat emptor". Basic health education is not lacking in the U.S., and it takes not a lot of effort to learn what's healthy to eat and what isn't. Because it's not a big secret that too much fat in your diet will make you gain weight, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask people to examine what they eat, and if you ask the counter person about nutrition information, that person will hand you a sheet that contains all of the nutrition information you need to see that the burgers are very high in fat. In short, the fact that McDonald's portrays their food in the best possible light does not excuse you from responsibility for examining their presentation with a critical eye.
Wow. And when you go to buy a car, there are people who actually make money by selling you accessories and rustproofing and dealer financing, and they'll use all the advertising tricks in the book to encourage people to buy more...
Virg
> Properly mount devices! err, or at least, place them on an anti-static bag. Or not on top of a static generator like the power supply.
Oops, lesson not quite learned, here. It wasn't static electricity that killed that drive, it was most likely a short circuit caused by laying the drive on a flat metal surface. The lesson here (other than mounting the drive, which is a good practice) is to put it on something non-conductive, like a folded sheet of paper or foam or something. By its very design, the power supply doesn't generate static electricity, and laying the drive on a static bag would likely have killed it just as dead as what happened.
Virg
> Here's a nickle, kid, go buy a sense of humor.
Here's a nickel for you. Go buy yourself a spell checker.
Virg
> Oh yeah.... and the rebooting is a Windoze thing. Here's a nickle, kid, get yourself a proper OS, as they say (/me ducks!).
Ducking the dictionary someone just threw at you?
Virg
My German is rusty (even though I keep him dry), but isn't "Popel" less acceptable than "Leute" here? Sollt es nicht "Soylent Green ist leute!" sein?
Virg
> Please elaborate. When would you consider him "reformed"? When he's crouched on his broken kneecaps, begging for your forgiveness for sending you a few unsolicited mails?
How about when he's paid back the money for all of the bandwidth he stole, or makes some kind of restitution (community service or the like) to repay all the time wasted by everyone he bombarded?
That'd be a start, but he doesn't seem to be interested in any of that. The only reason he's not spamming any longer is that AOL's lawyers are holding a financial gun to his head. That's not reformed, in any sense I'll accept.
Virg
> Yes, fraud, not breach of contract. I still stand behind my insults, albeit slightly further behind, being later in the day and I'm more awake.
Take another step back. It's both fraud and breach of contract. Fraud is a criminal charge, levelled by the district attorney. Breach of contract is a civil charge, pressed by the affected party (in this case, the merchant that was defrauded). The contract she'd be breaching is the contract of sale, wherein she accepted goods or services and promised payment. Her signature (or lack of signature) is not relevant in any way to that contract, which case after case has established as valid even when implied. If she receives goods or services, and then doesn't pay for them, she's breached contract. If she used a known-invalid credit card to defraud the merchant, she has also committed fraud.
Virg
> The whole fucking point is SHE DIDN'T SIGN UP FOR THE CARD -- SHE DID NOT SIGN TO HAVE A CREDIT CARD -- SHE DID NOT SIGN ANY CONTRACT. Make sure you know what you're talking about before playing "I'm so fucking smart."
Take your own advice. Not only are you incorrect about your original statement (I addressed this in another post), but you're wrong on this specific point as well. When you buy something on a credit card, with very, very few exceptions, you have to sign your name to the credit slip. If you don't sign, in most cases the merchant won't sell you anything, and they'll call the police if you've already received service (like not signing the slip at a restaurant). Printed on the form, in most cases right over the signature line, there's a statement to the effect of "I agree to be bound by the cardholder agreement". Even if she didn't sign the original application, by signing even one of these slips, she'd have signed a contract in a legal sense. If she only used the card where no signature is required, like pay-at-the-pump stations, she'd still be committing fraud just by presenting the card, so my post above applies.
Virg
> What about if you are not the one spending the money?
This thread does not apply to actual theft. It only applies to the advice for the author's wife to run up the charges herself.
Virg
> > The original comment was that she would have no contractual obligation for the debt
> And that is correct. The key word is contractual. They never signed a contract, therefore there is no contractual obligation, although there sure as hell is a legal obligation. I should have been clearer in my reply.
Sorry, but you'd still have been wrong. You state that she never signed a contract with the credit card company, so she has no contractual obligation to repay the money. However, the original statement (and its intent, in telling her she could use the card with impunity) stated she'd have no contractual obligation to anybody at all. That's incorrect, since the contract that would be important would still be the contract of sale with the merchant. You can say that's just a point of semantics, but then how would you reconcile that with the parent poster's suggested action to run up a balance that (he states) she would never have to pay?
Virg
> Except, that's exactly how it works. It's not illegal for me to sign you up for a credit card...
This is indeed illegal. Applying for credit in someone else's name is against the law (assuming you hold no power of attorney for that person), because if you do it without their explicit approval, you are indeed defrauding the credit issuer, by giving them information that they reasonably believe represents that person's interest to borrow money, and their acceptance of the terms of repayment. That's why the signature is required on the form, and if the credit card company accepts the application without the signature, then both you and they are in the wrong.
> It *might* be illegal if I was maliciously representing myself as you in order to defraud someone else or damage your character, but it's not illegal for me to go down to the city dump, get an address off an envelope, and fill out a credit card app with it (minus signature, which would be forgery).
See above. It is specifically illegal, because you are misrepresenting me in order to defraud the credit issuer.
> The CC company isn't prohibited from gathering personal information in any legal manner, and if they want to stoop to rooting around in the bins at the mall, whatever. It's still legal. No contract is necessary, and from the description none was inferred.
They can collect all the information they want. That's not the problem. The problem is that they acted on that information to issue credit without her explicit approval, and that's a violation of law.
> A lawsuit is frivolous and an abdication of personal responsibility following a boneheaded mistake.
In the case of the spam and junk mail, you're absolutely correct. But in the case of the credit card she now has that she never wanted, you're entirely wrong. That credit card represents a significant liability to her, and she did not authorize the creation of the account. If she applied for a mortgage, that credit line would fall into consideration, even though she didn't want it. If someone stole the number and used it, she could face a huge legal battle to recover her credit. If the company followed any sort of standard procedure, they requested credit reports on her with no authority to do so (remember, the signature on the form is what authorizes them to do credit checks, and doing the checks without the signature is actionable). Therefore, she can charge them with these violations, and she should do so because what they did was an egregious failure on their part to follow their own procedures, to the possible detriment of her credit rating.
Virg
> No it isn't. It's still illegal, but easy to lie about. ("It wasn't me, I never wrote that information. Someone was impersonating me.")
Yes, my statement is correct. The original comment was that she would have no contractual obligation for the debt, and I stated that that's not true. Using fraud (using a known-invalid card) and then perjury (when questioned, she'd lie about using the card) does not excuse the obligation for repayment. She may get out of paying the bill, but getting out of a contract by committing two felonies doesn't nullify the contract.
Virg
> Don't contribute to the lawsuit nonsense... suck it up and live with your mistake.
Don't contribute to the "public property" nonsense, suck it up and admit you don't understand the violation. The fact that she threw the form whole into the trash means that she cannot expect Fourth Amendment protection for the information. It does not constitute carte blanche on the part of any company to do what they wish with it, and it most certainly does not give any entity the right to use the information to enter her into a contract without her permission. The fact that someone took her information (remember, no signature means no agreement to the terms, in a legal sense) and entered the application means that the contract is invalid. Tha fact that it was accepted by the credit card issuer does not remove the fact that it was submitted without her permission.
By your logic, I could look your name, address and other pertinent information up on the Internet, and if you were careless enough to have made public enough information that I can complete one of these forms, I can sign you up for a credit card, and you'd have to take your own advice and suck it up. That's just not how it works. She should proceed with seeking legal resourse in this case.
Virg