But seriously, all this means is the copper thieves will have to use insulated tools to cut the electrified wire first.
Electric fences can detect when they've been cut, and are often linked to alarms and other security systems (additionally most modern systems can even send you e.g. mobile phone notifications the moment they're tripped, or can be easily programmed to automatically call a security company). Actually, as this business owner has 'tried everything', he probably has existing security systems that the electric fence systems would plug into.
Most people are missing the point. It's not about the method of killing, it's whether a particular act of killing is justifiably self-defense or not. If a 'killer robot' protects an innocent woman and/or child from being raped and/or murdered, then it stands to reason this is good. Denying innocent parties a valid method of self-defense is (e.g. banning methods of self-defense), on the other hand, wrong. When 'killer robots' become intelligent enough to be used for e.g. home security then I'll be getting one... it will keep my wife and children safer from murderous thugs.
As for military, again, what if 'killer robots' could be used to help conduct surgical precision strikes against ruthless murderous dictators like Kim Jong Un, minimizing loss of innocent life? Would they still be 'bad'? Wouldn't banning them in such a case actually prevent killers like Kim Jong Un from being stopped?
The problem with nuclear weapons (that you mention) is that they inherently and unavoidably kill thousands of innocent people. 'Killer robots' can in fact do the exact opposite - they can be used for surgical precision strikes of precisely the 'bad guys' - which is actually the correct thing, in war or not. (Yes they could be used for evil, but that doesn't mean they should be banned.)
If you can't even be bothered to turn off your AC during a major emergency with downed power then you deserve whatever happens to you. If you are rich and can afford an oversupply then sure, go for it, but stop giving lectures, the majority of folks simply cannot afford such large systems, and can and must "make do" by taking such tremendously complex steps such as "turning off AC" and "not running kettles, stoves and microwaves all at the same time".
Sounds to me like you got oversold by the company that sold you the setup, and now don't want to admit it. 10kw is huge.
I'm sure you trivially buy a 2kw kettle, there you save 1kw right there, it'll just take slightly longer to boil the water. Then don't run the microwave and kettle or oven at the same time, and you're already down to around 5kw to 6kw peak - and you've saved a farkload of money on the system.
If you are rich and have lots of money to waste, then sure, go for it, 10kw system is OK.
500W PC? That sounds like some hardcore gaming system.
The USPTO is basically funded by fees it charges patent applicants. In effect this means that the more it rubber-stamps, the more money it makes... if it tightened up applications to only grant "reasonable" patents their income would plummet as the industry would no longer file for every stupid thing. Conflict of interests / moral hazard... they get paid more the more wreckage they cause.
Note the IBM patent is a normal 'method' patent, not a design patent. Does this make it better? No, it makes this all worse, because it means the patent system not only is actually just that broken, but that it was already as far back as 1995.
organizations have aggregated power, and they are single-minded in their mission
Wow - you've never really been a shareholder or member of any real organization, have you? You'd know that the moment you have more than one person, you already start having disagreements. Trying to get large organizations to *appear* like-minded (to give the false illusion of being like-minded) is one of the most monstrous challenges in being a part of the management/ownership of such organizations.
Organizations tend to be amoral - even sociopathic
This doesn't really make sense. I mean let's think about it, what can an organization do that is "sociopathic"? Can an organization commit murder? No, only individuals within an organization can decide to commit murder.
And even worse, organizations use money
You really just can't stop anthropomorphizing organizations... organizations can't "use" money, only individuals belonging to (or owning) an organization can "use" money.
I don't know the solution though.
The solution is to place the restrictions where they actually belong - i.e. limitations on the ability to use actual power to actually violate rights. "Organizations" cannot violate rights because members of ordinary organizations like corporations have to follow the same laws as everyone else (e.g. if Larry Ellison committed murder he would be prosecuted and go to jail, just like you or me). But what you are referring to, let's be open about it, is using financial clout to purchase politicians, and then using those purchased politicians to use real power (that government actually has - e.g. government really has given itself the right to murder or steal) for private benefit at the expense of others. The "solution" is that politicians who do this should be prosecuted and sent to jail - i.e. you punish moral violations where they actually happen. It doesn't help to, in some confused state, try get free speech restricted, but leave in place a system where governments can still steal or murder with impunity.
Set reservations, resource pools, and shares to keep critical systems humming along when someone in the engineering department decides to write a fork bomb on a dev machine
To be fair, critical systems shouldn't be running on dev machines to begin with, but yeah.
I won't touch VMWare, have had too many problems with it (the free version even hosed one of my machines). VMWare was good in the beginning but at some point it became the Adobe of virtual machine software. I prefer VirtualBox, even though it's now Oracle, somehow Oracle seem not to have fucked it up yet.
So basically you're saying that the system is OK because in an absurdly artificially restricted case you could potentially do it illegally without getting caught? OK, maybe technically (that's true of any crime), but that's not what normal people mean at all when they discuss things like this, nor is that an even meaningful hypothetical. (You can also get away with visiting a prostitute if you don't get caught or smoking a doobie if you don't get caught, but that's not relevant when normal people discuss whether it's morally valid or a positive or negative thing for these things to be illegal.)
Not really, because an electric heater gives off a small amount of energy as visible light, while a processor only gives off heat. So arguably, the processor is marginally more efficient at heating 'per Watt'.
He wouldn't see it as 'broken' because from his perspective it's 'working as designed' - to make sociopathic scumbag lawyers like him rich and to allow big companies to use patent cross-licensing and ring-fencing to destroy potential upstart competitors. A more important question would be if the patent system was immoral, and it is. It's effectively the initiation of violence against, and theft of property of, 'second inventors', for merely using their minds to create something. Those of who aren't lacking a conscience find the software patent system morally repugnant, and all software developers with a moral conscience should reject the software patent system as a matter of principle.
The popular linguistic assumption/convention is that if water is not mentioned, it's probably absent.
Let's rather stick to avoiding ambiguity. Otherwise you just know the first person who goes to a planet and finds no water, is going to sue, and lawyers have enough money.
If it costs nothing and is so super easy and trivial, i.e. if there is no burden, then why not just leave it to patients to do? It's a burden for patients but it's not a burden for hospitals? Can't have it both ways, either it's easy (in which case patients can do it) or it's not (in which case it's a burden and a cost that must be passed on to everyone).
Slashdot Mirror
Then why would the fence need high voltage?
Do I really need to answer this, or do you want to think about it for a bit? Hint, some robbers may find massive electric shocks a little off-putting.
But seriously, all this means is the copper thieves will have to use insulated tools to cut the electrified wire first.
Electric fences can detect when they've been cut, and are often linked to alarms and other security systems (additionally most modern systems can even send you e.g. mobile phone notifications the moment they're tripped, or can be easily programmed to automatically call a security company). Actually, as this business owner has 'tried everything', he probably has existing security systems that the electric fence systems would plug into.
Most people are missing the point. It's not about the method of killing, it's whether a particular act of killing is justifiably self-defense or not. If a 'killer robot' protects an innocent woman and/or child from being raped and/or murdered, then it stands to reason this is good. Denying innocent parties a valid method of self-defense is (e.g. banning methods of self-defense), on the other hand, wrong. When 'killer robots' become intelligent enough to be used for e.g. home security then I'll be getting one ... it will keep my wife and children safer from murderous thugs.
As for military, again, what if 'killer robots' could be used to help conduct surgical precision strikes against ruthless murderous dictators like Kim Jong Un, minimizing loss of innocent life? Would they still be 'bad'? Wouldn't banning them in such a case actually prevent killers like Kim Jong Un from being stopped?
The problem with nuclear weapons (that you mention) is that they inherently and unavoidably kill thousands of innocent people. 'Killer robots' can in fact do the exact opposite - they can be used for surgical precision strikes of precisely the 'bad guys' - which is actually the correct thing, in war or not. (Yes they could be used for evil, but that doesn't mean they should be banned.)
If you can't even be bothered to turn off your AC during a major emergency with downed power then you deserve whatever happens to you. If you are rich and can afford an oversupply then sure, go for it, but stop giving lectures, the majority of folks simply cannot afford such large systems, and can and must "make do" by taking such tremendously complex steps such as "turning off AC" and "not running kettles, stoves and microwaves all at the same time".
Sounds to me like you got oversold by the company that sold you the setup, and now don't want to admit it. 10kw is huge.
I'm sure you trivially buy a 2kw kettle, there you save 1kw right there, it'll just take slightly longer to boil the water. Then don't run the microwave and kettle or oven at the same time, and you're already down to around 5kw to 6kw peak - and you've saved a farkload of money on the system.
If you are rich and have lots of money to waste, then sure, go for it, 10kw system is OK.
500W PC? That sounds like some hardcore gaming system.
He's doing a valuable service to us -- pointing out how ridiculous things got.
Kind of like Rosa Parks did, but I suppose she was also just looking for attention.
And yet a utility patent for just this sort of thing already exists, so the point would seem to stand, wouldn't it?
The USPTO is basically funded by fees it charges patent applicants. In effect this means that the more it rubber-stamps, the more money it makes ... if it tightened up applications to only grant "reasonable" patents their income would plummet as the industry would no longer file for every stupid thing. Conflict of interests / moral hazard ... they get paid more the more wreckage they cause.
Note the IBM patent is a normal 'method' patent, not a design patent. Does this make it better? No, it makes this all worse, because it means the patent system not only is actually just that broken, but that it was already as far back as 1995.
You have violated Apple's "hello world" patent with this comment, please take it down.
If software is speech, then wouldn't patents violate the 1st amendment?
organizations have aggregated power, and they are single-minded in their mission
Wow - you've never really been a shareholder or member of any real organization, have you? You'd know that the moment you have more than one person, you already start having disagreements. Trying to get large organizations to *appear* like-minded (to give the false illusion of being like-minded) is one of the most monstrous challenges in being a part of the management/ownership of such organizations.
Organizations tend to be amoral - even sociopathic
This doesn't really make sense. I mean let's think about it, what can an organization do that is "sociopathic"? Can an organization commit murder? No, only individuals within an organization can decide to commit murder.
And even worse, organizations use money
You really just can't stop anthropomorphizing organizations ... organizations can't "use" money, only individuals belonging to (or owning) an organization can "use" money.
I don't know the solution though.
The solution is to place the restrictions where they actually belong - i.e. limitations on the ability to use actual power to actually violate rights. "Organizations" cannot violate rights because members of ordinary organizations like corporations have to follow the same laws as everyone else (e.g. if Larry Ellison committed murder he would be prosecuted and go to jail, just like you or me). But what you are referring to, let's be open about it, is using financial clout to purchase politicians, and then using those purchased politicians to use real power (that government actually has - e.g. government really has given itself the right to murder or steal) for private benefit at the expense of others. The "solution" is that politicians who do this should be prosecuted and sent to jail - i.e. you punish moral violations where they actually happen. It doesn't help to, in some confused state, try get free speech restricted, but leave in place a system where governments can still steal or murder with impunity.
The human birthrate is falling worldwide ... So it would be very prudent to start breeding humans
We'll need many, many humans to fight in the coming Robot Wars.
but is it really feasible
Yes
, desirable
Yes
or even affordable for the majority of Earth's population?
STFU
My perception of Mac OS X in short: UNIX/Linux with a straight jacket.
Set reservations, resource pools, and shares to keep critical systems humming along when someone in the engineering department decides to write a fork bomb on a dev machine
To be fair, critical systems shouldn't be running on dev machines to begin with, but yeah.
Friday evening / Saturday morning - the shills have clocked out
But how do you keep your systems cool with all that hot air around?
3) It's easier to keep a dedicated server task running if the underlying hardware fails, by just transferring the VM over to a different host
I won't touch VMWare, have had too many problems with it (the free version even hosed one of my machines). VMWare was good in the beginning but at some point it became the Adobe of virtual machine software. I prefer VirtualBox, even though it's now Oracle, somehow Oracle seem not to have fucked it up yet.
So basically you're saying that the system is OK because in an absurdly artificially restricted case you could potentially do it illegally without getting caught? OK, maybe technically (that's true of any crime), but that's not what normal people mean at all when they discuss things like this, nor is that an even meaningful hypothetical. (You can also get away with visiting a prostitute if you don't get caught or smoking a doobie if you don't get caught, but that's not relevant when normal people discuss whether it's morally valid or a positive or negative thing for these things to be illegal.)
Not really, because an electric heater gives off a small amount of energy as visible light, while a processor only gives off heat. So arguably, the processor is marginally more efficient at heating 'per Watt'.
He wouldn't see it as 'broken' because from his perspective it's 'working as designed' - to make sociopathic scumbag lawyers like him rich and to allow big companies to use patent cross-licensing and ring-fencing to destroy potential upstart competitors. A more important question would be if the patent system was immoral, and it is. It's effectively the initiation of violence against, and theft of property of, 'second inventors', for merely using their minds to create something. Those of who aren't lacking a conscience find the software patent system morally repugnant, and all software developers with a moral conscience should reject the software patent system as a matter of principle.
The popular linguistic assumption/convention is that if water is not mentioned, it's probably absent.
Let's rather stick to avoiding ambiguity. Otherwise you just know the first person who goes to a planet and finds no water, is going to sue, and lawyers have enough money.
Storing a png of this record costs near nothing.
If it costs nothing and is so super easy and trivial, i.e. if there is no burden, then why not just leave it to patients to do? It's a burden for patients but it's not a burden for hospitals? Can't have it both ways, either it's easy (in which case patients can do it) or it's not (in which case it's a burden and a cost that must be passed on to everyone).
So you can't just keep a file labelled "My important medical records"? Really? That's just overwhelmingly too complex for you?