When I first read this, I thought to my self, what does a javascript engine implementation have to do with video encoding?
TLAs are annoying, often ambiguous, and easily confused when similar. I wish they would die, to a certain extent. I'm working an a project currently where a certain TLA refers to both and external system we're interfacing with, and a separating 3rd-party library we're using. To say this causes confusion would be and understatement.
The point, admittedly very vaguely alluded to, is that why need a film studio, at all? The tax code should not be so complex that you need training videos (we're well over 10K pages of legal gibberish and growing, arent' we?).
And, why bother, when you're not legally liable for the advice you own people give?
Also, if the cost saving is that much, I could a government film studio. 'a' as in one, shared by various offices.
How many training videos a year does the IRS produce such that it justifies a dedicated studio? And, more importantly, what relevant videos do they produce that require a studio, and couldn't be performed "on site" in an IRS office on a Saturday or Sunday?
In regards to the comparison to a corporation: whatever. A corporation is responsible to minimize it's bottom line and answers to it's share holders. We're talking about a government agency, and an agency that doesn't think it answers to anyone. An agency that basically does what it wants, spends what it wants, and justifies it with a high-profile tax evasion busts every few years or so. And harasses normal citizens, to great expense continually.
Now, I'll grant $60K is a drop of piss in the bucket, but $60K here, $60K there, eventually we're talking about real money.
The film was made at an IRS studio in New Carrollton, Md., a suburb of Washington. The agency said it uses the studio to make training films and informational videos for taxpayers.
Why does the IRS even have a film studio?
From an agency that's not even culpable for the advise it gives to the taxpayers, why are they even producing videos for training that's not legally binding as far as the information it provides?
High time we abolish the current tax system and replace it with something like the Fair Tax that would allow us to destroy most, if not all, of the IRS.
I spent close to $10K last year to obliviate my need for glasses, I'll be damned if I'm going to buy a TV that requires me to wear them again. 3D w/o glasses, I might entertain, I'm going to wait a long while for the technology to be flushed out. Will not be an early adopter. That said, I've 3D capable computer monitors and graphics cards, and have not turned on either, yet, despite having all the hardware required.
So, when you go to build a house, you're going to forge your own nails, screws. Grow, harvest and saw your own lumber? Drill for the petroleum needed to make PVC pipes? Mine the copper for the wiring? I don't think so.
Rolling your own, reinventing the wheel, whatever you want to call it is sometimes necessary, but usually a sign of NIH.
The Boost Lambda library is basically unusable for all but the most trivial of things. The error messages are horrendous and it several bloats your binaries unless you strip symbols, at which point debugging is a nightmare.
That said, it demonstrated the need for first-class support for lambdas in the language, so Boost Lambda did serve a useful purpose.
i) Fix the darn grammar so that compilers accept UNICODE source
Many compilers already do support UTF-8 in source code. But I do agree that this should just be standardized across the board.
This is implementation-defined in C++11, a compiler could in theory support multiple input types, see ISO 14822:2001, S2.1.1 and S2.3.
j) Fix the darn grammar so that compilers RECOGNIZE identifiers WITH Unicode characters
Why? So you can have a function named () instead of pi()? This strikes me as something which would just make it harder to read.
This is required in C++11, see S2.11, Annex E.1 for allowed codepoint ranges, Annex E.2 for initially disallowed codepoint ranges (this is in addition to the ascii nondigit & digit rules). After the initial translation, pretty much all subsequent internal compiler work is done with UTF32.
The dorm I lived in had cinder-block walls. Usually good for "decent" sound insulation. When I worked one summer as a Resident Adviser, I had one guest that constantly complained about noise from me. Thing was, I got up to go to work at 4am to avoid traffic (I had to drive 40 miles each way through downtown Chicago). Mind you, I had the TV volume for news, at that hour, just loud enough I could hear it when I was in my room. This was also about the same time the El train running a couple blocks away started rerunning for the morning, and this was far louder than my TV. So, who got the blame? Students living on campus were accustomed to the noise of the train, but a transient professor/teacher on campus for a few weeks won't adjust in that time (I knew what I was getting into when I went to the campus and pre-adjusted by falling asleep to "noise"/music the summer prior).
I've also lived in apartments where the walls/floors/ceilings were paper thin and you could hear even the quietest conversation between them (I only lived in that unit for the extent of my lease). That really sucked, because I got noise complaints all the time. It got to the point I nearly always wore headphones on the PC.
What the fuck is wrong with me? What the fuck is wrong with you?
Years in federal prison for downloading something is unjust.
What did he download, what methods did employ to do so? You "information should be free" types are living in a la-la land. What if the information was your banking codes? What if he then used that to bankrupt you? What if he downloaded nuclear launch codes, then used that or gave it to someone that launched one or more? Should that info be free?
Understandably, in this context, he downloaded research papers. Where's the harm in that? While I'm no fan of the MPIA/RIAA cartel, I do believe in a limited form of copyright. He did violate copyright laws. And from what I've read, he also committed wire fraud and possibly identity theft in order to gain his unlawful physical access, which led to criminal trespass.
Despite his intentions, he is no saint. He, like you and I, need to be held accountable for our actions under the law.
The penalties are likely too severe, as they seem to exceed those of if you were to say deal drugs or murder someone. But, the laws aren't written, in this case to take into account what was stolen, just that it was.
And, what about embedded, non-connected systems? The clock outside the drugstore a block from my office in the middle of downtown Chicago is now wrong 6 weeks of the year.
I've wasted a year of my life dealing with DST issues in software. I'd be more than willing to go through a minor permanent one time shift to never have to deal with fuckery. DST is pointless in this day and age. It's billed as energy saving because "lights are off during daytime". Really? Look around an office. Lights are on the entirety of the day! Many offices even have lights on 24/7. It doesn't save squat. It just costs.
During WW2, the US was on daylight savings for several years straight (although, it was called War Time - Feb 9 '42 through Aug 14 '46 according to my Olson Database). When the war ended with Japan, it was renamed Peace Time (Aug 14 '46 through Sep 30 '46) until it reverted back to standard time.
I went to Illinois Institute of Technology...we rarely came into the sun except for classes that required it. Not so say we didn't enjoy sports. We had "midnight football", which started at 2am Saturday Morning. Full contact, tackle football sans pads. We banned drunks after we broke a kid's leg because he couldn't get out of the way. We had minimal lighting from the quad, but occasionally public safety would pull up their cars and leave theirs lights on for us. Officers would even cheer us on, at times.
I was commenting irrespective of the prosecutor. I understand there are/have been other shady things. In the perfect world of my mind, a prosecutor should execute all violations of law to their fullest extent. Unjust/illegal/unconstitutional/improper laws ought either be overturned by the judiciary or rewritten by the legislature. It's not the job or role of the executive branch to decide what laws should be enforced.
point me the the pool of angry people getting fake merchandise unintentionally and I'll point you to a DOJ that prosecutes serious issues of criminal action where actual victims lost life/liberty/pursuit of happiness.
While they may not angry, I'd suggest there's a large pool of people out there that think they're getting a good deal because it "fell off the bus". And its the same mentality that gets these jokers into office. The politicians that have the country's best interests in mind are not the ones that get elected. It's the politicians that can best sell their lies to a moronic populace that get elected. It's the ones that can continue to sell their lies that get reelected. Probably 90% of the populace are idiots. You don't get elected by convincing the intellectuals. You get elected by convincing the idiots they're going to starve to death if you're not elected.
What about grand theft larceny? By plugging in his computer into their network, it became more than a mere trespass. At the going rate, the documents he was downloading would likely have qualified under that consideration.
But, by your argument, if I broken into a woman's bedroom, whipped out my equipment and plugged it in, it'd be mere trespass, not rape. Besides, it didn't cost her anything to give it up.
What's the difference? Because it was electronic? Because it was to access information *you* believe should be free? What if I told you I thought that woman's vagina ought to be free? Does that then make it right? Because I thought it to be so? What if I can get tens of thousands online to agree with me, does that then justify it? What if I substitute wallet for vagina/network? For what substitutions is this now right? And for which is it wrong?
Swartz was caught accessing something that did not legally belong to him, and he was being made held accountable for his actions.
Having only read part of the law and listening to the repeated propaganda and "your taxes will not go up" under "Obamacare": I can tell you one thing: my taxes immediately went up $6K/yr after the very first parts of that law took effect. And that's not even counting my increased health care contributions my employers takes out of my check, or the increased copay (copay went up 50% the very first year, is now up 250% from year previous to Obamacare's passing).
I said it then, and I'll say it now: If you haven't personally read the entirety of the text of a law you're voting on, you have no business voting on the law. Party politics aside, Pelosi's comment "We'll know what this bill says when we pass it" ought to have been enough alone to impeach her.
You forget, we (the American populace), not I, reelected this administration already knowing about Fast & Furious and the drone strikes.
But, Swartz *did* break the law as it stands now. And, it appears he did so knowingly. And, rather than work to change the law, he decided he was above it and broke it. As such, he deserved to be prosecuted. He didn't work to change the law, he just wantonly broke it. As such, they brought down the hammer on him. He wanted access to a system he didn't have legal access to. Sure, it was just to download research docs from an educational system. But, what it if was financial records from a bank? He would have performed the same act, but against a different target. How is this different? HE. BROKE. THE. LAW. And did so knowingly.
Were the criminal penalties Swartz was facing just? I'm not sure. But, he did break the law as stands, and should have been prosecuted for it. If you selectively enforce a law, it loses are baring and effectiveness, and arguably could have been used as precedent in future cases, with more severe consequences, to dismiss a case. Common law sucks in that regard.
But the news said he supported our rights! Both can't be true.
Actions speak louder than words. Obama also stated he'd "help" small businesses. Apparently the only small businesses he cares about are accountants and lawyers, because in a single year (2012), he increased the number of regulations, laws and taxes on small businesses by 12%.
Though as an ignorant foreigner I'm now wondering: how *does* the US military reconcile its oath to defend the Constitution with the DHS's stance that the Constitution (at least, the 4th) does not apply (within 100 miles of the border) on US soil? What happens when a DHS agent tries a warrantless search on a US soldier and wants to seize their laptop/phone?
Such an order would be unlawful, and the soldier has the duty to lawfully disobey the unlawful order.
Slashdot Mirror
...and they couldn't settle for anything less.
When I first read this, I thought to my self, what does a javascript engine implementation have to do with video encoding? TLAs are annoying, often ambiguous, and easily confused when similar. I wish they would die, to a certain extent. I'm working an a project currently where a certain TLA refers to both and external system we're interfacing with, and a separating 3rd-party library we're using. To say this causes confusion would be and understatement.
The point, admittedly very vaguely alluded to, is that why need a film studio, at all? The tax code should not be so complex that you need training videos (we're well over 10K pages of legal gibberish and growing, arent' we?).
And, why bother, when you're not legally liable for the advice you own people give?
Also, if the cost saving is that much, I could a government film studio. 'a' as in one, shared by various offices.
How many training videos a year does the IRS produce such that it justifies a dedicated studio? And, more importantly, what relevant videos do they produce that require a studio, and couldn't be performed "on site" in an IRS office on a Saturday or Sunday?
In regards to the comparison to a corporation: whatever. A corporation is responsible to minimize it's bottom line and answers to it's share holders. We're talking about a government agency, and an agency that doesn't think it answers to anyone. An agency that basically does what it wants, spends what it wants, and justifies it with a high-profile tax evasion busts every few years or so. And harasses normal citizens, to great expense continually.
Now, I'll grant $60K is a drop of piss in the bucket, but $60K here, $60K there, eventually we're talking about real money.
The film was made at an IRS studio in New Carrollton, Md., a suburb of Washington. The agency said it uses the studio to make training films and informational videos for taxpayers.
Why does the IRS even have a film studio?
From an agency that's not even culpable for the advise it gives to the taxpayers, why are they even producing videos for training that's not legally binding as far as the information it provides?
High time we abolish the current tax system and replace it with something like the Fair Tax that would allow us to destroy most, if not all, of the IRS.
Heads I win, tails you lose, anybody got a bag full of dimes I can use?
One just needs to read her tweets about racism to see she's all in favor of the double-standard.
I spent close to $10K last year to obliviate my need for glasses, I'll be damned if I'm going to buy a TV that requires me to wear them again. 3D w/o glasses, I might entertain, I'm going to wait a long while for the technology to be flushed out. Will not be an early adopter. That said, I've 3D capable computer monitors and graphics cards, and have not turned on either, yet, despite having all the hardware required.
So, when you go to build a house, you're going to forge your own nails, screws. Grow, harvest and saw your own lumber? Drill for the petroleum needed to make PVC pipes? Mine the copper for the wiring? I don't think so.
Rolling your own, reinventing the wheel, whatever you want to call it is sometimes necessary, but usually a sign of NIH.
The Boost Lambda library is basically unusable for all but the most trivial of things. The error messages are horrendous and it several bloats your binaries unless you strip symbols, at which point debugging is a nightmare.
That said, it demonstrated the need for first-class support for lambdas in the language, so Boost Lambda did serve a useful purpose.
i) Fix the darn grammar so that compilers accept UNICODE source Many compilers already do support UTF-8 in source code. But I do agree that this should just be standardized across the board.
This is implementation-defined in C++11, a compiler could in theory support multiple input types, see ISO 14822:2001, S2.1.1 and S2.3.
j) Fix the darn grammar so that compilers RECOGNIZE identifiers WITH Unicode characters Why? So you can have a function named () instead of pi()? This strikes me as something which would just make it harder to read.
This is required in C++11, see S2.11, Annex E.1 for allowed codepoint ranges, Annex E.2 for initially disallowed codepoint ranges (this is in addition to the ascii nondigit & digit rules). After the initial translation, pretty much all subsequent internal compiler work is done with UTF32.
The dorm I lived in had cinder-block walls. Usually good for "decent" sound insulation. When I worked one summer as a Resident Adviser, I had one guest that constantly complained about noise from me. Thing was, I got up to go to work at 4am to avoid traffic (I had to drive 40 miles each way through downtown Chicago). Mind you, I had the TV volume for news, at that hour, just loud enough I could hear it when I was in my room. This was also about the same time the El train running a couple blocks away started rerunning for the morning, and this was far louder than my TV. So, who got the blame? Students living on campus were accustomed to the noise of the train, but a transient professor/teacher on campus for a few weeks won't adjust in that time (I knew what I was getting into when I went to the campus and pre-adjusted by falling asleep to "noise"/music the summer prior). I've also lived in apartments where the walls/floors/ceilings were paper thin and you could hear even the quietest conversation between them (I only lived in that unit for the extent of my lease). That really sucked, because I got noise complaints all the time. It got to the point I nearly always wore headphones on the PC.
, Pi day could have been March 2nd.
... over here in Europe. You laugh at them, and when they don't play nice, you nuke them.
Europe nuked somebody? Must have slept in on that news day.
Years in federal prison for downloading something is unjust.
What did he download, what methods did employ to do so? You "information should be free" types are living in a la-la land. What if the information was your banking codes? What if he then used that to bankrupt you? What if he downloaded nuclear launch codes, then used that or gave it to someone that launched one or more? Should that info be free?
Understandably, in this context, he downloaded research papers. Where's the harm in that? While I'm no fan of the MPIA/RIAA cartel, I do believe in a limited form of copyright. He did violate copyright laws. And from what I've read, he also committed wire fraud and possibly identity theft in order to gain his unlawful physical access, which led to criminal trespass.
Despite his intentions, he is no saint. He, like you and I, need to be held accountable for our actions under the law.
The penalties are likely too severe, as they seem to exceed those of if you were to say deal drugs or murder someone. But, the laws aren't written, in this case to take into account what was stolen, just that it was.
And, what about embedded, non-connected systems? The clock outside the drugstore a block from my office in the middle of downtown Chicago is now wrong 6 weeks of the year.
I've wasted a year of my life dealing with DST issues in software. I'd be more than willing to go through a minor permanent one time shift to never have to deal with fuckery. DST is pointless in this day and age. It's billed as energy saving because "lights are off during daytime". Really? Look around an office. Lights are on the entirety of the day! Many offices even have lights on 24/7. It doesn't save squat. It just costs.
During WW2, the US was on daylight savings for several years straight (although, it was called War Time - Feb 9 '42 through Aug 14 '46 according to my Olson Database). When the war ended with Japan, it was renamed Peace Time (Aug 14 '46 through Sep 30 '46) until it reverted back to standard time.
I went to Illinois Institute of Technology...we rarely came into the sun except for classes that required it. Not so say we didn't enjoy sports. We had "midnight football", which started at 2am Saturday Morning. Full contact, tackle football sans pads. We banned drunks after we broke a kid's leg because he couldn't get out of the way. We had minimal lighting from the quad, but occasionally public safety would pull up their cars and leave theirs lights on for us. Officers would even cheer us on, at times.
I was commenting irrespective of the prosecutor. I understand there are/have been other shady things. In the perfect world of my mind, a prosecutor should execute all violations of law to their fullest extent. Unjust/illegal/unconstitutional/improper laws ought either be overturned by the judiciary or rewritten by the legislature. It's not the job or role of the executive branch to decide what laws should be enforced.
point me the the pool of angry people getting fake merchandise unintentionally and I'll point you to a DOJ that prosecutes serious issues of criminal action where actual victims lost life/liberty/pursuit of happiness.
While they may not angry, I'd suggest there's a large pool of people out there that think they're getting a good deal because it "fell off the bus". And its the same mentality that gets these jokers into office. The politicians that have the country's best interests in mind are not the ones that get elected. It's the politicians that can best sell their lies to a moronic populace that get elected. It's the ones that can continue to sell their lies that get reelected. Probably 90% of the populace are idiots. You don't get elected by convincing the intellectuals. You get elected by convincing the idiots they're going to starve to death if you're not elected.
What about grand theft larceny? By plugging in his computer into their network, it became more than a mere trespass. At the going rate, the documents he was downloading would likely have qualified under that consideration.
But, by your argument, if I broken into a woman's bedroom, whipped out my equipment and plugged it in, it'd be mere trespass, not rape. Besides, it didn't cost her anything to give it up.
What's the difference? Because it was electronic? Because it was to access information *you* believe should be free? What if I told you I thought that woman's vagina ought to be free? Does that then make it right? Because I thought it to be so? What if I can get tens of thousands online to agree with me, does that then justify it? What if I substitute wallet for vagina/network? For what substitutions is this now right? And for which is it wrong?
Swartz was caught accessing something that did not legally belong to him, and he was being made held accountable for his actions.
Having only read part of the law and listening to the repeated propaganda and "your taxes will not go up" under "Obamacare": I can tell you one thing: my taxes immediately went up $6K/yr after the very first parts of that law took effect. And that's not even counting my increased health care contributions my employers takes out of my check, or the increased copay (copay went up 50% the very first year, is now up 250% from year previous to Obamacare's passing).
I said it then, and I'll say it now: If you haven't personally read the entirety of the text of a law you're voting on, you have no business voting on the law. Party politics aside, Pelosi's comment "We'll know what this bill says when we pass it" ought to have been enough alone to impeach her.
You forget, we (the American populace), not I, reelected this administration already knowing about Fast & Furious and the drone strikes.
But, Swartz *did* break the law as it stands now. And, it appears he did so knowingly. And, rather than work to change the law, he decided he was above it and broke it. As such, he deserved to be prosecuted. He didn't work to change the law, he just wantonly broke it. As such, they brought down the hammer on him. He wanted access to a system he didn't have legal access to. Sure, it was just to download research docs from an educational system. But, what it if was financial records from a bank? He would have performed the same act, but against a different target. How is this different? HE. BROKE. THE. LAW. And did so knowingly.
Were the criminal penalties Swartz was facing just? I'm not sure. But, he did break the law as stands, and should have been prosecuted for it. If you selectively enforce a law, it loses are baring and effectiveness, and arguably could have been used as precedent in future cases, with more severe consequences, to dismiss a case. Common law sucks in that regard.
But the news said he supported our rights! Both can't be true.
Actions speak louder than words. Obama also stated he'd "help" small businesses. Apparently the only small businesses he cares about are accountants and lawyers, because in a single year (2012), he increased the number of regulations, laws and taxes on small businesses by 12%.
Though as an ignorant foreigner I'm now wondering: how *does* the US military reconcile its oath to defend the Constitution with the DHS's stance that the Constitution (at least, the 4th) does not apply (within 100 miles of the border) on US soil? What happens when a DHS agent tries a warrantless search on a US soldier and wants to seize their laptop/phone?
Such an order would be unlawful, and the soldier has the duty to lawfully disobey the unlawful order.