> Dude... does what the fuck he wants, and is a great example why such things can sometimes be brilliant for science. > (There are plenty of people who don't like him because of his personality and penchant for > unusual decisions, but these decisions are often for very sound reasons.
Having had the honor and the curse of working with him, I whole-heartedly agree. Daniel J Berstein can be counted on to never do what anyone tells him to do. It's rather annoying. It makes him hard to deal with, and it means if NSA asked him to do something he'd almost surely do the opposite - loudly.
Some Chinese companies have learned a neat trick. Diamond Back did it 20-30 years ago, I suspect Foxconn will do it next.
With the BlackBerry and Apple designs and process knowledge they've provided to Foxconn, Foxconn will soon have little need for these American companies. They can just sell the next generation under the Foxconn brand.
If you point an IR light source, such as a remote control, at the camera from a few inches away it'll be visible DESPITE the IR filter. By analogy, dark sunglasses might filter out 80% of visible light, but that doesn't make the a flashlight invisible through sunglasses.
Every digital camera I've ever checked has an IR filter coating. Often, a cotton swab dipped in acetone can be used to wipe away the coating.
I've known a few criminals. Never seen a smart one. All of them fail to understand the very simple fact that you might get away with it today and you might get away with it tomorrow, but you WILL get busted at some point .
Many IR receivers and transmitters, such as on remote controls, are covered by opaque black plastic. That black plastic is opaque to visible light, but transparent in infrared. CMOS cameras are very good at seeing in infrared. Therefore, a factory installed cover could APPEAR opaque but actually be transparent for spying purposes.
When I was a licensed private investigator I may have taken advantage of that fact.
"The report also ranks Canada dead last among countries compared on this metric"
So you agree they are the worst wait times in the world, roughly speaking. I'd say that's enough to make it clear that the Canadian system is in no way perfect. Are we in agreement on that, there are some significant disadvantages known?
If so, I don't see a need to go back and try to find the exact document I read a year ago. The point has made and agreed to.
I'm glad you didn't have to wait long. According to the government office running that damn thing, about 30% of patients have to wait more than 30 days for a GP and 70% wait more than 30 days for a specialist.
Are you claiming that they are lying to make themselves look bad, or that it's okay for everyone ELSE to be unable to see the doctor for a month, because you personally got to see one this time?
I understand what you're saying. However, compare this "ridiculously broad" system to almost anything else, such as your Windows desktop. On Windows, applications have 100% permissions to do whatever they want on your computer. The user is either admin or not admin, two choices only.
It seems to me Android's system is a giant leap forward, although it's imperfect. You have very fine grained control in Linux through SELinux. Some people might prefer that level of control, but that level of detailed control can also be unwield.
* I haven't used Windows 8. If Windows 8 finally has a security model even as powerful as "chmod g+r" from 1972 Unix please forgive my lack of knowledge about Microsoft's latest silliness.
> Is there any easy to use firewall configs to block/allow by country?
That very much depends on your definition of easy. Netfilter is there. Some phones have iptables pre-installed, so on those phones you'd blacklist or whitelist list exactly the same as any other Linux distribution. That's easy for me, it would be hard for a lot of people.
Other phones don't have iptables installed so you'd need to copy the binary over to the phone.
At minimum, you'll need root access on the device.
True, it's only 10% ethanol. The specific energy of gas is 46, ethanol is 30, so ethanol has far less energy per pound or kg. However, ethanol is also heavier, so one liter of gas has 34 MJ of energy and one liter of ethanol 33.2 MJ.
We'd expect an ethanol fueled car to get worse mileage for three reasons. First there's just plain less energy in ethanol. Secondly, a 10 gallon tank full of ethanol is heavier and weight is the number one enemy of fuel economy. Accelerating extra weight to 70 MPH takes more energy. Lastly, the engine was DESIGNED for gas, not for ethanol, so it'll be a little less efficient burning the "wrong" fuel. Compression ratio is a key factor here - an engine designed for ethanol would need higher compression.
However, with only 10% ethanol, I expect it would be hard to notice much difference. The amount of time you spend at stop lights and how many times you open the throttle to pass a slower car will cause as much variation, so without testing on a closed track it would be hard to measure the difference reliably, given it's 90% gas.
I found this comment interesting: > others with the same engine have made the same observations.
It's entirely possible that that engine, with the tuning settings used in that motorcycle, isn't exactly optimal for gasoline. Motorcycles in general aren't optimized for fuel consumption. Your GL500 is less streamlined than city bus, as measured by drag coeeficient.
Ethanol contains 10% less energy than gasoline. If, running on gas, your engine wastes that additional energy, something is wrong with your engine. Something is out of tune, worn, etc. The energy is there, that's basic chemistry and nobody disputes that. You can ask the head of the ethanol marketing aassociation and they'll acknowledge that basic fact. If your car does as badly on gas as it does on ethanol either your engine or your record keeping has a problem.
A) The Canadians I know come to the US for medical care.
Do we want a system so awesome that people can't get the care they need and have to go to other countries? Canada DOES measure quality by the percentage of people who are able to see a doctor within 30 days. For a GP, most wait less than 30 days. For a specialist, most wait more than 30 days. I called my doctor at 4PM today to make an appointment for tomorrow morning . So yes, that is a problem with government run healthcare.
B) Yes, I AM saying that the US government is different from other countries. It's supposed to be. I bet most governments can build a web site, or at least have one built. The US government spends millions and ends up with garbage. That's a fact. Even Obamacare poster girl that Obama presented as a representative success story wasn't actually able to buy insurance via healthcare.gov. All they needed was ONE person to present as a success story and they couldn't find ONE; they had to fake it.
The US government is SUPPOSED to be fair, transparent, and democratic. It's not DESIGNED to be efficient and capable. If we wanted efficient and capable we'd have Supreme Dictator Eric Schultz, not filibusters. Eric Schultz, as dictator, would get shit done. Congress doesn't get shit done, Congress isn't designed to get shit done Congress is designed to be fair, to be accountable to their constituents and to be deliberative (slow).
I'm sure North Korea could do government healthcare efficiently, because they'd just do whatever the dictator said, with noone whining about coverage for sex-change surgery or whatever. Here in the US, the government has to pander to the dude who wants a pussy, to the old guy who spent all his money on hookers and blow, and the young people working their ass off to pay for all this crap. That's not a recipe for an effective, efficient system. It's not supposed to be, not the US government.
Too late. Most of the jobs people did 100 years ago are now done by machines, while the machines do the work. It's the machines that actually touch the raw materials and the products.
The baker? Already replaced by someone running a bread-making machine (robot) that bakes 1,000 loaves per hour. How many humans touch that loaf of bread you buy in the grocery store? Approximately zero, and that's why you can buy it for 99. The lumberjack, chopping down trees? Already replaced by the harvester machine, with a human sitting inside, but not actually touching any trees. The butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker were all replaced decades ago. They all became machine operators, operating machines that result in us walking into the grocery store and seeing 39 different kinds of sandwich bread to choose from.
That's kind of the point, some Democrat congress critters say. Let this fail horribly and a certain segment of the voting public will once again be clamoring for CHANGE. Any change will do. Those voters don't bother to ask "change to what?"
If they did think about what the new (single payer) system would be like, they'd realize they'll have the US government, who can't even manage to have a website built, would be running the whole show. Instead of taking six months to maybe buy medical insurance on healthcare.gov, it'll be six months to maybe schedule a doctor appointment on healthcareappt.gov .
I hear what you're saying. I'm at the age where before long I'll be an old guy. The new kids will probably think I don't know anything about some new thing X, only to find out that I helped write X.
My mother was a pioneer who helped bring major companies into the digital age. She's taught programming, database architecture, etc. and was a top ranking information systems executive for Fortune 100 companies. I learned a lot from her. It would be accurate to say she's forgotten more than most Slashdotters ever knew. That's one reason she calls me for help - because she's forgotten. The other day I mentioned a principle she taught me and she didn't know what I was talking about, having been away from it for 15 years.
The other reason she calls me is because while she could patch a Unix BINARY by manually editing the machine code, Windows 8 is a new, foreign land. She had a Vista machine before this Windows 8 laptop, but she's much more comfortable with Solaris or System 7, or any environment that runs Cobol.
I greatly respect her knowledge and experience, especially her deep understanding of timeless principles. She recognizes that today's systems and today's threats are not the same as the 8080 powered systems she wrote assembler for.
I've been programming interactive web sites since 1997. Recently my wife, who is ten years younger than I, taught me a bit about Facebook.
Each of us has strengths and weaknesses. In general, as we mature we synthesize random knowledge into principles - broadly applicable statements that reflect deeper understanding than feature X and product Y. When we're younger, we're interested in each new version of product Y, the new performance feature and this new security feature.
The foolish young person might think that the "old guy" is out of date. The wise person who has seen some things realizes that the new kid actually DOES have something we could benefit from - the PFY often knows that the virus scanner we've loved for 20 years hasn't kept up, and he knows the new, improved tools.
When I want to know relational calculus or how to bid a job without requirements, I'll ask the old guy. When I want to know how to uninvite someone from a Facebook event, I'll ask that kid over there who is building the Facebook app.
You say it was caused by "sexual crimes were given much more prominence in policing policy". The thing is, ROBBERY doubled. That's not a sex crime. Your theory was perfectly reasonable, it just turned out to be wrong. There's no shame in that, my predictions are often wrong. Now, knowing what effects the policy actually had, you can revisit your prediction or you can choose to be wrong on purpose.
"so nothing changed there in potential threats to attackers. Concealed carry licenses are still available today, exactly the same as they were prior to the ban - you can still apply for one, and the rules haven't changed"
So nothing changed? Nothing other than a tripling of violent crime immediately after the ban. Nothing changed, except twice asmany women got raped. Nothing changed, other than a rash of armed robberies. Nothing changed other than precisely what no-one wants to have happen did happen, as soon as guns were banned.
Since you have this data now, you have a choice to make. Politics or rape? Your ideologic prejudice or your wife? Do you want to protect your old outdated beliefs or your daughters? It's your choice to make.
Vint Cerf is active with IETF, or was when I was. When I was new, I very nearly publicly scolded him for posting off-topic. I composed a scolding email before realizing who I was scolding. When I saw that it was v.cerf@ I decided to let someone else, TB Lee or someone, do the scolding if necessary. That that I'm adverse to telling the emperor he has no clothes, but I was a total newbie, a baby compared to them, so I felt I should let the long-time members uphold their own code etiquette in the way they had established.
It was actually Cerf I was thinking of when I wrote Postel, but I'm sure Postel probably was, or would have been, a member.
IETF was good for me in the same way that LKML is. I have a pretty big ego and working with Cerf and people like that helps keep me right-sized. I'm reminded that I'm neither a big shot nor a newbie, but just another guy with some arbitrary level of ability. I know more than some people and I know less than some people. When I start to think I'm an expert, a look at my inbox reminds me that on any topic there are at least a hundred people more expert than I.
I can understand wanting to try SOMETHING. Banning guns has already been tried. The question iswhether disarming law-abiding citizens will increase victimization, or if violent criminals will turn in their weaponswhen they are outlawed. After the near total ban in UK, that debate can now be answered by looking at what the results actually were. Official crime rate information from the Home Office (2002, 2013) indicatesthat in the five years prior to the ban, 1.2 million violent crimes were reported. After the ban took affect, there were over 5 million violent crimes in the following five years. Home Office data shows that rape went from 27,000 to nearly 47,000 when potential attackers were assured there was no risk thatalaw-abiding woman might defend herself with a firearm. Other serious crimes show the same pattern. Total sex offenses increased from 158,000 to over 245,00.
So sure you want to try SOMETHING. Is satisfying that urge worth doing something that will cause another 20,000 women to be raped? That's what does in fact happen when you ban guns.
Twenty years ago, you could reasonably argue which of the following is more true: a) Assuring criminals that law abiding citizens are defenseless victims will encourage more attacks or b) Adding another law will cause criminals to start following the law and turn in their guns.
It's now been tried, so we know the answer. The UK banned guns to the point that there own Olympic shooting team has to go abroad to practice.
Comparing Home Office crime statistics for the five years after the ban vs. the five years before the ban, murder, rape, robbery, and total violent crime all roughly doubled when citizens were disarmed.
It's no longer a question of what WOULD happen, we know what DID happen. When women were told they can't defend themselves, twice as many got raped. It's not 1990 anymore - we now no what gun bans do. We have the information now to understand that anti self-defense is pro-rape
This work is being done by IETF, the Internet Engineering Task Force, which is an open organization who does most of their work via their mailing list. Anyone can read the daily message archive or join. I was a member for several years and you too are welcome to lurk or join and be active.
The only caveat is please remember this is how Jon Postel, DJB, and others of similar skill get work done. Anything you post goes to the email of many of the internet's primary architects, so please read for a while first to get a feel for how the group works, then contribute in your area of expertise. When posting, you're working with the world's top experts on internet technology, so please keep that in mind.
Slashdot Mirror
> Dude ... does what the fuck he wants, and is a great example why such things can sometimes be brilliant for science.
> (There are plenty of people who don't like him because of his personality and penchant for
> unusual decisions, but these decisions are often for very sound reasons.
Having had the honor and the curse of working with him, I whole-heartedly agree.
Daniel J Berstein can be counted on to never do what anyone tells him to do.
It's rather annoying. It makes him hard to deal with, and it means if NSA asked him to do something he'd almost surely do the opposite - loudly.
Some Chinese companies have learned a neat trick.
Diamond Back did it 20-30 years ago, I suspect Foxconn will do it next.
With the BlackBerry and Apple designs and process knowledge they've provided to Foxconn, Foxconn will soon have little need for these American companies. They can just sell the next generation under the Foxconn brand.
That's interesting that the two cams on the same device would be so different. One, a very effective IR filter and little to no filter on the other.
If you point an IR light source, such as a remote control, at the camera from a few inches away it'll be visible DESPITE the IR filter. By analogy, dark sunglasses might filter out 80% of visible light, but that doesn't make the a flashlight invisible through sunglasses.
Every digital camera I've ever checked has an IR filter coating. Often, a cotton swab dipped in acetone can be used to wipe away the coating.
"a smart criminal would"
I've known a few criminals. Never seen a smart one.
All of them fail to understand the very simple fact that you might get away with it today and you might get away with it tomorrow, but you WILL get busted at some point .
Many IR receivers and transmitters, such as on remote controls, are covered by opaque black plastic. That black plastic is opaque to visible light, but transparent in infrared. CMOS cameras are very good at seeing in infrared. Therefore, a factory installed cover could APPEAR opaque but actually be transparent for spying purposes.
When I was a licensed private investigator I may have taken advantage of that fact.
"The report also ranks Canada dead last among countries compared on this metric"
So you agree they are the worst wait times in the world, roughly speaking. I'd say that's enough to make it clear that the Canadian system is in no way perfect. Are we in agreement on that, there are some significant disadvantages known?
If so, I don't see a need to go back and try to find the exact document I read a year ago. The point has made and agreed to.
> You are misrepresenting the "see a doctor within 30 days" metric, the 30 days stat is *specifically* to see a specialist.
Let's try reading an entire sentence or two. I said:
"For a GP, most wait less than 30 days. For a specialist, most wait more than 30 days."
They publish BOTH statistics. For a GP, "only" 20%-30% had to wait more than a month. For a specialist, the AVERAGE is over a month.
I'm glad you didn't have to wait long. According to the government office running that damn thing, about 30% of patients have to wait more than 30 days for a GP and 70% wait more than 30 days for a specialist.
Are you claiming that they are lying to make themselves look bad, or that it's okay for everyone ELSE to be unable to see the doctor for a month, because you personally got to see one this time?
I understand what you're saying. However, compare this "ridiculously broad" system to almost anything else, such as your Windows desktop. On Windows, applications have 100% permissions to do whatever they want on your computer. The user is either admin or not admin, two choices only.
It seems to me Android's system is a giant leap forward, although it's imperfect. You have very fine grained control in Linux through SELinux. Some people might prefer that level of control, but that level of detailed control can also be unwield.
* I haven't used Windows 8. If Windows 8 finally has a security model even as powerful as "chmod g+r" from 1972 Unix please forgive my lack of knowledge about Microsoft's latest silliness.
> Is there any easy to use firewall configs to block/allow by country?
That very much depends on your definition of easy.
Netfilter is there. Some phones have iptables pre-installed, so on those phones you'd blacklist or whitelist list exactly the same as any other Linux distribution. That's easy for me, it would be hard for a lot of people.
Other phones don't have iptables installed so you'd need to copy the binary over to the phone.
At minimum, you'll need root access on the device.
True, it's only 10% ethanol. The specific energy of gas is 46, ethanol is 30, so ethanol has far less energy per pound or kg.
However, ethanol is also heavier, so one liter of gas has 34 MJ of energy and one liter of ethanol 33.2 MJ.
We'd expect an ethanol fueled car to get worse mileage for three reasons. First there's just plain less energy in ethanol.
Secondly, a 10 gallon tank full of ethanol is heavier and weight is the number one enemy of fuel economy. Accelerating extra weight to 70 MPH
takes more energy. Lastly, the engine was DESIGNED for gas, not for ethanol, so it'll be a little less efficient burning the "wrong" fuel.
Compression ratio is a key factor here - an engine designed for ethanol would need higher compression.
However, with only 10% ethanol, I expect it would be hard to notice much difference. The amount of time you spend at stop lights and
how many times you open the throttle to pass a slower car will cause as much variation, so without testing on a closed track it would be hard
to measure the difference reliably, given it's 90% gas.
I found this comment interesting:
> others with the same engine have made the same observations.
It's entirely possible that that engine, with the tuning settings used in that motorcycle, isn't exactly optimal for gasoline.
Motorcycles in general aren't optimized for fuel consumption. Your GL500 is less streamlined than city bus, as measured by drag coeeficient.
Ethanol contains 10% less energy than gasoline.
If, running on gas, your engine wastes that additional energy, something is wrong with your engine. Something is out of tune, worn, etc. The energy is there, that's basic chemistry and nobody disputes that. You can ask the head of the ethanol marketing aassociation and they'll acknowledge that basic fact. If your car does as badly on gas as it does on ethanol either your engine or your record keeping has a problem.
A) The Canadians I know come to the US for medical care.
Do we want a system so awesome that people can't get the care they need and have to go to other countries? Canada DOES measure quality by the percentage of people who are able to see a doctor within 30 days. For a GP, most wait less than 30 days. For a specialist, most wait more than 30 days. I called my doctor at 4PM today to make an appointment for tomorrow morning . So yes, that is a problem with government run healthcare.
B) Yes, I AM saying that the US government is different from other countries. It's supposed to be. I bet most governments can build a web site, or at least have one built. The US government spends millions and ends up with garbage. That's a fact. Even Obamacare poster girl that Obama presented as a representative success story wasn't actually able to buy insurance via healthcare.gov. All they needed was ONE person to present as a success story and they couldn't find ONE; they had to fake it.
The US government is SUPPOSED to be fair, transparent, and democratic. It's not DESIGNED to be efficient and capable. If we wanted efficient and capable we'd have Supreme Dictator Eric Schultz, not filibusters. Eric Schultz, as dictator, would get shit done. Congress doesn't get shit done, Congress isn't designed to get shit done Congress is designed to be fair, to be accountable to their constituents and to be deliberative (slow).
I'm sure North Korea could do government healthcare efficiently, because they'd just do whatever the dictator said, with noone whining about coverage for sex-change surgery or whatever. Here in the US, the government has to pander to the dude who wants a pussy, to the old guy who spent all his money on hookers and blow, and the young people working their ass off to pay for all this crap. That's not a recipe for an effective, efficient system. It's not supposed to be, not the US government.
Slashdot silently deleted the cent sign.
Too late. Most of the jobs people did 100 years ago are now done by machines, while the machines do the work. It's the machines that actually touch the raw materials and the products.
The baker? Already replaced by someone running a bread-making machine (robot) that bakes 1,000 loaves per hour. How many humans touch that loaf of bread you buy in the grocery store? Approximately zero, and that's why you can buy it for 99. The lumberjack, chopping down trees? Already replaced by the harvester machine, with a human sitting inside, but not actually touching any trees. The butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker were all replaced decades ago. They all became machine operators, operating machines that result in us walking into the grocery store and seeing 39 different kinds of sandwich bread to choose from.
That's kind of the point, some Democrat congress critters say. Let this fail horribly and a certain segment of the voting public will once again be clamoring for CHANGE. Any change will do. Those voters don't bother to ask "change to what?"
If they did think about what the new (single payer) system would be like, they'd realize they'll have the US government, who can't even manage to have a website built, would be running the whole show. Instead of taking six months to maybe buy medical insurance on healthcare.gov, it'll be six months to maybe schedule a doctor appointment on healthcareappt.gov .
I hear what you're saying. I'm at the age where before long I'll be an old guy. The new kids will probably think I don't know anything about some new thing X, only to find out that I helped write X.
My mother was a pioneer who helped bring major companies into the digital age. She's taught programming, database architecture, etc. and was a top ranking information systems executive for Fortune 100 companies. I learned a lot from her. It would be accurate to say she's forgotten more than most Slashdotters ever knew. That's one reason she calls me for help - because she's forgotten. The other day I mentioned a principle she taught me and she didn't know what I was talking about, having been away from it for 15 years.
The other reason she calls me is because while she could patch a Unix BINARY by manually editing the machine code, Windows 8 is a new, foreign land. She had a Vista machine before this Windows 8 laptop, but she's much more comfortable with Solaris or System 7, or any environment that runs Cobol.
I greatly respect her knowledge and experience, especially her deep understanding of timeless principles. She recognizes that today's systems and today's threats are not the same as the 8080 powered systems she wrote assembler for.
I've been programming interactive web sites since 1997. Recently my wife, who is ten years younger than I, taught me a bit about Facebook.
Each of us has strengths and weaknesses. In general, as we mature we synthesize random knowledge into principles - broadly applicable statements that reflect deeper understanding than feature X and product Y. When we're younger, we're interested in each new version of product Y, the new performance feature and this new security feature.
The foolish young person might think that the "old guy" is out of date. The wise person who has seen some things realizes that the new kid actually DOES have something we could benefit from - the PFY often knows that the virus scanner we've loved for 20 years hasn't kept up, and he knows the new, improved tools.
When I want to know relational calculus or how to bid a job without requirements, I'll ask the old guy. When I want to know how to uninvite someone from a Facebook event, I'll ask that kid over there who is building the Facebook app.
You say it was caused by "sexual crimes were given much more prominence in policing policy". The thing is, ROBBERY doubled. That's not a sex crime. Your theory was perfectly reasonable, it just turned out to be wrong. There's no shame in that, my predictions are often wrong. Now, knowing what effects the policy actually had, you can revisit your prediction or you can choose to be wrong on purpose.
If Google is smart, they'll download approximately 1 copy of each image, ignoring the tracking ID in the URL.
"Most successful tech company in the world" suggests that they may in fact be smart.
"so nothing changed there in potential threats to attackers. Concealed carry licenses are still available today, exactly the same as they were prior to the ban - you can still apply for one, and the rules haven't changed"
So nothing changed? Nothing other than a tripling of violent crime immediately after the ban. Nothing changed, except twice asmany women got raped. Nothing changed, other than a rash of armed robberies. Nothing changed other than precisely what no-one wants to have happen did happen, as soon as guns were banned.
Since you have this data now, you have a choice to make. Politics or rape? Your ideologic prejudice or your wife? Do you want to protect your old outdated beliefs or your daughters? It's your choice to make.
Vint Cerf is active with IETF, or was when I was.
When I was new, I very nearly publicly scolded him for posting off-topic. I composed a scolding email before realizing who I was scolding. When I saw that it was v.cerf@ I decided to let someone else, TB Lee or someone, do the scolding if necessary. That that I'm adverse to telling the emperor he has no clothes, but I was a total newbie, a baby compared to them, so I felt I should let the long-time members uphold their own code etiquette in the way they had established.
It was actually Cerf I was thinking of when I wrote Postel, but I'm sure Postel probably was, or would have been, a member.
IETF was good for me in the same way that LKML is. I have a pretty big ego and working with Cerf and people like that helps keep me right-sized. I'm reminded that I'm neither a big shot nor a newbie, but just another guy with some arbitrary level of ability. I know more than some people and I know less than some people. When I start to think I'm an expert, a look at my inbox reminds me that on any topic there are at least a hundred people more expert than I.
I can understand wanting to try SOMETHING. Banning guns has already been tried. The question iswhether disarming law-abiding citizens will increase victimization, or if violent criminals will turn in their weaponswhen they are outlawed. After the near total ban in UK, that debate can now be answered by looking at what the results actually were. Official crime rate information from the Home Office (2002, 2013) indicatesthat in the five years prior to the ban, 1.2 million violent crimes were reported. After the ban took affect, there were over 5 million violent crimes in the following five years. Home Office data shows that rape went from 27,000 to nearly 47,000 when potential attackers were assured there was no risk thatalaw-abiding woman might defend herself with a firearm. Other serious crimes show the same pattern. Total sex offenses increased from 158,000 to over 245,00.
So sure you want to try SOMETHING. Is satisfying that urge worth doing something that will cause another 20,000 women to be raped? That's what does in fact happen when you ban guns.
Twenty years ago, you could reasonably argue which of the following is more true:
a) Assuring criminals that law abiding citizens are defenseless victims will encourage more attacks
or
b) Adding another law will cause criminals to start following the law and turn in their guns.
It's now been tried, so we know the answer. The UK banned guns to the point that there own Olympic shooting team has to go abroad to practice.
Comparing Home Office crime statistics for the five years after the ban vs. the five years before the ban, murder, rape, robbery, and total violent crime all roughly doubled when citizens were disarmed.
It's no longer a question of what WOULD happen, we know what DID happen. When women were told they can't defend themselves, twice as many got raped. It's not 1990 anymore - we now no what gun bans do. We have the information now to understand that anti self-defense is pro-rape
This work is being done by IETF, the Internet Engineering Task Force, which is an open organization who does most of their work via their mailing list. Anyone can read the daily message archive or join. I was a member for several years and you too are welcome to lurk or join and be active.
The only caveat is please remember this is how Jon Postel, DJB, and others of similar skill get work done. Anything you post goes to the email of many of the internet's primary architects, so please read for a while first to get a feel for how the group works, then contribute in your area of expertise. When posting, you're working with the world's top experts on internet technology, so please keep that in mind.