I work in the rocket launch industry. I have supported launch operations. A launch slip occurs when a company says, "We want to launch on date XX/XX/XXXX," and then later they say, "There was a problem with that date, now we are going to launch on date, YY/YY/YYYY."
Something precisely nobody has debated.
SpaceX has not claimed the former. Never have they said, publicly, "We intend to launch in March of 2010." They have said, "NASA has granted us a launch window that exists between March 2010 and May 2010. We should launch sometime within that period."
Which means we won't know if they slip or not - no matter what they can claim to be on schedule and adhering to their plan. It doesn't mean they aren't slipping.
That's pretty Orwellian
To that I respond, with all do respect, "WTF?" You know, Orwellian isn't a word that you can just toss on anything you dislike because it has a negative connotation. It actually has a very specific meaning that, so far as I can tell, has absolutely no bearing on the discussions in this thread.
Actually, it has a broad range of meaning and connotations - to wit: "It connotes an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past".
Which is that the scientists (and their political supporters) which you quote above insist that the studies criticizing them be reviewed and must be debunked* while simultaneously insisting that their work is above criticism.
Prove it, particularly the latter part.
Read any debate of climate science - heck, read the comments right here in this Slashdot article. The effect is clearly visible.
Real scientists welcome reviews of their work - but the ones you quote above (and their political supporters) go to great lengths to debunk and marginalize any reviews that don't meet their pre-ordained conclusions.
As they should. If it can be debunked it should be debunked, and if it has been debunked it deserves to be marginalized, as it has little value for everybody else.
Except science doesn't work by debunking - it works by incorporating criticism. Or, in other and less kind words, you prove my point. AGW has become a religion, and like all religions resists criticism - to the point where it's supporters are no longer cognizant of how science works.
*Yes, not incorporated into the existing body of work as is usual in science, but debunked.
Wrong. Science is all about putting theories and hypothesis out there, waiting to be debunked. They don't become accepted and incorporated into the existing body of work until they've sustained for *years* such 'attacks' (we call them "peer review" though).
Yet AGW has become gospel *without* resisting 'attacks' (your words, not mine) for years. It remains gospel and goes out of its way to marginalize any criticism rather than to examine the evidence on it's own merits.
If anybody's crazy little hypothesis would become accepted as soon as they're published, the world of science would be far more chaotic than it already is, and so far the denialists' studies haven't gone any farther than that.
Yet, when another hypothesis 'proves' AGW it is accepted as soon as it is published. When criticism arises, it's attacked and supported refuse to review it. (And your use of 'denialist' just further proves my point. You aren't interested in science, you're a follower of a religion.)
If that indeed does prove to be the case, it would not be a slip or a launch date failure, it would be part of the overall Falcon 9 launch plan.
That's pretty Orwellian, or like something out of Dilbert. "We're planning on a launch potentially as early as March or April, but if plans change and launch date slips it won't really be a slip because we'll be right on schedule according to the revised schedule".
Furthermore, I do feel it necessary to point out that this:
However if something goes wrong, those plans will come crashing to Earth along with Falcon 9.
...is a friggin' sensationalist claim that has no place in science reporting, either on a primary site or on a news aggregation site.
A bit sensationalist for the overall program, less so for SpaceX and the Falcon 9. SpaceX doesn't have unlimited funding or unqualified political support. A failure could indeed have significant repercussions, a string of failures (as the Falcon I had) could spell the end of SpaceX's NASA contract of not of SpaceX itself.
And when you multiple those cost x2 to equate to a low fidelity simulation of the delivery capability of the Shuttle on one flight (one Ariane 5/Falcon 9 flight for less cargo* than the Shuttle can deliver and one Ariane 5/Falcon 9 flight for fewer people)... The question of who is cheaper starts to get really interesting. (Assuming the lower bound of $250 million for a Shuttle flight priced at marginal cost is reasonable.)
This is one of the things we discovered when we added up the costs of using Russian Soyuz and Proton boosters as replacements for the Shuttle. The Shuttle seems more expensive because it swallows money in such huge chunks, other boosters sup more daintily but accomplish much less. (In the same way people often don't realize how renting an apartment costs more in the long run than purchasing a house.)
The other problem of course is determining exactly how much a Shuttle flight costs - since you can't buy one 'off the shelf' like you can more conventional launches.
* The Ariane 5 has a gross cargo capacity roughly equivalent to Shuttle's net capacity, but it's net capacity is significantly less due to the need to provide free flight capability for the delivered payloads.
How fortuitous, that's exactly what your reply is. Utter rubbish.
There are thousands of scientists working in fields that have a bearing on climate change, from geology to biochemistry to atmospheric physics. They publish tens of thousands of articles on topics related to climate change in the peer-reviewed literature. By doing so, they palpably demonstrate that they do not treat their work as above criticism.
Yes, the rejection and marginalization of any results which don't accord with the politically correct and foreordained results is happening. Thus, that papers agreeing with the politically correct and foreordained results are being published means those papers are being accepted - not that they are open to criticism.
After all, Creation Scientists publish papers in journals all the time. But they don't accept criticism do they?
There is no plausible answer to Michael Frayn's argument in his play "Cophenhagen". Ergo, the matter is incontrovertibly settled: there is simply no way that Heisenberg could have got his initial estimate of the mass of a uranium bomb so badly wrong (several tonnes) at Farm Hall if he had been working on such a project for the NAZIs.
You assume that research invariably produces an incontrovertible and utterly final answer - when nothing could be further from the truth.
Take for example, from the Manhattan Project, the discovery of Plutonium's sensitivity to predetonation. When the fission properties of Plutonium were first explored, it was discovered and 'proven' that Plutonium would work in a gun type bomb. Later, when the properties were being studied more intensely (to refine the bombs design), and completely unexpectedly, Plutonium showed an apparent change in it's fission properties - tending to explode early, well before the [gun type] bomb could reach anything approaching it's theoretical performance. (In other words it would fizzle.) Worse yet, different samples showed different performances, and when the same samples were shipped to Berkley they showed performance not only different from their original research there, but also different from Los Alamos.
In the end it turned out that the difference in location of testing was one of the two keys - Los Alamos, being at higher altitude than Berkley, was subjected to a higher flux of cosmic rays. Those cosmic rays were fissioning P-240 that was present in the samples. The effect had not been previously discovered because the original (accelerator bred) had a far lower level of P-240 contamination than the (reactor bred) samples later used at Los Alamos. (And that the P-240 contamination level depended on the irradiation schedule and level during production.) The scientists had known about the P-240 contamination, but had originally dismissed it.
The entire Plutonium bomb project had to be redirected to discover a method of assembling a supercritical mass of Plutonium orders of magnitude faster than was possible in a gun - resulting ultimately in the implosion bomb. The production schedule at Hanford had to be modified to control the breeding of P-240.
Hell, speaking of Hanford, the reactors there (built according the best research of the time), failed to work initially because of a previously unsuspected decay chain and daughter product poisoning the reactions within the reactor.
This is one of those controversies that has been going on for so long that there's a little industry built up around it, but like buggy-whip makers the product they are pushing is no longer much needed.
This belief only exists among those who aren't actually conversant with the history of the development of nuclear arms. (And those who wish to find a 'hero' who stood up not only against the Nazi's but against nuclear arms.)
Except that one can see many risky programs being engaged in during the Nazi era, not producing any useful or timely results, completely without dire consequences for those engaged in the program. In fact much of the technology, and the brainpower that created it, that was so eagerly exploited by the Allies post war came from scientists and technicians engaged in such risky programs.
It is suspected that Heisenberg didn't get into the bomb business for two key reasons: First, in being increasingly out of the main stream of research he lacked critical information on nuclear science and thus could make little progress, and second he never gained any significant political backing for his research. (Politics was very important in Nazi Germany as various leaders vied for power, status, and influence within the hierarchy.) It also didn't help that German nuclear research was fragmented among multiple organizations and (again, because of politics) poorly coordinated. (This was a problem that plagued research in all fields throughout the Nazi era, research priorities were sensitive to the political fortunes of their patrons and a lack of central coordination and prioritization meant there was a great deal of duplication.)
It is also suspected that Heisenberg, like Von Braun, indulged in a little post war retcon to cover up his intellectual failures and to cast himself in a more positive light. In particular, the Farm Hall transcripts show Heisenberg as believing a uranium bomb was not possible.
So now we have a celebrity science pissing-match on our hands. This is simple, IPCC was married with politics, like much of the entire debate. Everyone back to the lab, the field, the research. Stop pandering to politicians and environmentalists, and come up with some science! Until then, no I'm not taking you seriously.
That's absurd. Your sweeping generalization ignores the decades of research poured into the topic by research groups from all over the world.
No, he's ignoring the handful of years of increasingly politically motivated conclusions based on those decades of research.
There is ongoing research continually improving upon current models with updated and refined data.
The problem of course being that the models output no result but 'this is because of AGW'. Scientists predict a string of strong hurricane seasons 'because of AGW', and when they don't happen they update the model and 'discover' they didn't happen 'because of AGW'. Warm winter? AGW. Cold winter? AGW.
When the models keep being modified and produce the same output regardless of input - then something is up.
You can go take a look at the thousands upon thousands of journal articles written by these scientists, assuming you can even understand the jargon.
People who seek to demonstrate that anthropogenic climate change is not happening are much closer to scenario 2 than scenario 1. Scientists will quite reasonably say, "just before we chuck out all the accumulated evidence and thinking about how the world works and accept your argument that you've shown it that is, in fact, possible for humans to add net tens of billions of tons of gases such as CO2 and CH4 to the atmosphere in the space of decades without it having an impact on climate, do you mind terribly if we take a very long hard look at your evidence and reasoning?"
Which totally misses the OP's point.
Which is that the scientists (and their political supporters) which you quote above insist that the studies criticizing them be reviewed and must be debunked* while simultaneously insisting that their work is above criticism. Thus 'skeptic' has become, as used by those scientists (and their political supporters) a pejorative term.
Real scientists welcome reviews of their work - but the ones you quote above (and their political supporters) go to great lengths to debunk and marginalize any reviews that don't meet their pre-ordained conclusions.
You then go further in accepting the received wisdom of the scientists (and their political supporters) and treating as though it were as well proven as DNA encoding, which it isn't. It has the appearance of so being, but that's because the scientists (and their political supporters) have spent such time and energy loudly insisting they are right and that anyone who claims otherwise is a 'skeptic'.
*Yes, not incorporated into the existing body of work as is usual in science, but debunked.
Yes I agree, but he could offer to take it down out of concern for the families privacy rather than because the IOC has asked him to.
Ah yes, what a wonderful solution - take it down because you were ordered to and then lie about it.
Take the Moral high road and keep your freedom of speech at the same time.
Except - you've done neither. You've lost the moral high ground because you've lied. You've lost your freedom of speech because you've bowed down to an organization that trumps your nations laws.
Natural Gas is (mostly) methane, you know that right? Right now energy companies practically throw it away, and what little they do sell they sell for dirt cheep because the market is so small.
You obviously don't have to pay a gas bill.
Getting it to market en-masse would be cheap, the infrastructure is already there, as natural gas is ubiquitous as it is even though we only use a small percentage of what is available.
Ah yes, we have infrastructure to move 'what little they do sell' so we must have the infrastructure to move much larger quantities. After all, we don't build freeways because two lane country roads are quite adequate.
How the hell do you think they are saving $100,000+ per year on these things? Magic?
So we have a service designed from the start to attract internet trolls from one end and propaganda ministries from the other. What could possibly go wrong?
Oh, nothing could ever go wrong - after all, there's an automated translator! People who can talk to each other never fight after all.
Let's just say the weight of evidence is not on the school's side.
Let's just say the weight of evidence is not against the school either. In fact, there's essentially zero evidence.
Apparently the principal told the parents the picture came from a webcam on the laptop. We know the picture had to come into existence SOMEHOW and had to SOMEHOW end up in the principal's possession. The student and his parents had to SOMEHOW come to know there was software on the laptop that could remotely activate the camera.
None of which changes the facts - we don't know how the school came into possession of the picture. Period, end of sentence.
We know that for some reason the school has chosen not to offer this perfectly reasonable explanation you seem to think exists despite considerable public pressure (not to mention FBI and the DA) that would go away in an instant if they did.
Yes, and we even know the reason - the school is involved in a law suit.
I believe that from a practical standpoint we can say it's not looking good for the school board.
Mostly because of twisted non logic like you exhibit above - the school hasn't protested it's innocence and slandered the poor kid, so they must be guilt. But the beauty of your non logic is that if the school protested its innocence, it that people like you would be among the first to cry "they're slandering the poor boy, he must be innocent and they must be guilty".
If the question at hand ("How did school come into the possession of the photograph?") could be answered with EXIF data, that would be an outstandingly useful comment. But we already fucking know the picture was taken with the laptop's webcam. Idiot.
Here's a free clue for you since you so badly need one: Try actually reading my original message. Once you've done so, you'll note that your quoted passage appears nowhere in it. Either reply to what I quoted and wrote, or go reply to the OP.
It would have been even better had he not used a rumor as the basic for accusations in the first place and waiting until the facts are in. But he's got an agenda to push, and like all pundits he's only important so long as he's got something worth publishing - the more controversial and likely to get eyeballs on the publisher the better. Facts are secondary to this the reality that agendas must be served.
Lets keep facts seperate from speculation and assumption here.
Sure, he might be, but so far we KNOW the other side has a history of lying on record (The school board's public statements would make the picture and the disciplinary action impossible, yet both exist).
Absolutely incorrect on both counts, because we do not know how the school obtained the picture. Because of the acknowledged existence of the webcam security software virtually everyone is assuming the picture was obtained by the school via that software, and the plaintiffs are working very hard to make sure everyone makes that assumption - but there has not been one documented statement supporting that fact by either side. Nor was the student disciplined, though he was threatened with disciplinary action.
the problem is, the class and Google have already come to an agreement, but they need permission from the state to enact the settlement
Actually, there are two problems on top of that: It's not clear that those representing the class have the legal standing to do so, and the settlement violates black letter law.
As such, the state has a responsibility to make sure the settlement is fair for those slack members of the class who haven't bothered to turn up to court yet.
The state also has to ensure the settlement follows the law - which is precisely what the current hearings are about. The current settlement not only fails that test, but provides Google with the special privilege of being exempt from the law.
That's a gross misrepresentation of Google's position, which is significantly complicated such that it can't be easily distilled into two sentences.
Actually, it can be trivially reduced to two sentences - which the OP brilliantly did.
Here's a more adequate summary of my interpretation of Google's position:
Except you didn't summarize Google's position - you took the bitter core (Google wants to use other peoples content without going to the (currently) legally required trouble to obtain permission), and then heaped high fructose corn syrup and spin (Google will pay you for their thievery if you notice it has occurred*) on top.
It's the bitter core that people are objecting to, that Google seeks the right to violate black letter law at will. No amount of sugar or spin can make this palatable.
Monopoly power doesn't exist, because any property owner may opt to use any other distribution channel for their property, and all property that is being copied and distributed by Google can also be copied and distributed by any other party who desires to take the effort to scan the original work and transmit proceeds to the third party property owner clearing house for any property which they haven't explicitly gained the right to distribute.
In other words, Google magnanimously will allow other people the right to violate black letter law as well, fully knowing that saying "any other party can scan/digitize/distribute if they want to" is tantamount to saying "any can write an OS who cares to". Not to mention that we still find the same bitter core under that sugar.
You're correct that this principle can be applied to any other media. I see no reason why it shouldn't.
I think you grossly misunderstood the OP. He's pointing out that once one right currently enshrined in black letter law is overridden because it is inconvenient for Google to obey the law, then potentially other rights will similarly follow. Imagine Microsoft, or Bank of America, or Wal Mart finding protecting your rights inconvenient and, using the Google settlement as precedent, obtaining a ruling that they no longer need to follow laws inconvenient to them. There's potentially a great deal at stake here - and supporting Google because they dress in sheep's clothing is a grave mistake.
* This alone is a perversion of established legal principles - where I am not required to be aware of the thievery for the thief to liable for the theft.
In order to make any kind of comparison based on personal experience, you'd need to have experienced both: killing people from a great distance, and killing them up close in person. Then you could say which experience was more traumatizing.
Which is very true, but has precisely fuck-all to do with the OP's thesis, which was that individuals participating in remote control warfare weren't emotionally affected at all.
Give me a break. Besides, how many guys do you know that are comfortable crying and saying "God, that was a hard thing to do." That ain't happening, not in today's society. They're too afraid they'll be thought of as gay, or weak, or less of a man for admitting that they had doubts about what they just did.
This does happen, it happens every day. (Hint: This is why the military provides service members access to counselors and chaplains as outlined in the article.) Once again, your belief that service members are mindless unfeeling automatons is utterly false.
And now you have killing from the comfort of a computer screen, from halfway around the world. This is no coincidence or accident -- the military wants it this way. This is ideal. Those pilots sleep soundly at night, they do not have tortured souls or consciences
You may believe so, but their own testimony (in the article) says differently, they are deeply emotionally involved. My own experience as an SSBN missile crewman (about the ultimate in depersonalization and desensitization) agrees with them and not with you.
I think these developments are deeply troubling.
I think you haven't a clue what you are talking about and need to spend more time talking with folks with actual experience and less time in a book lined ivory tower.
Well, my experience with actually being poised to destroy the world (SSBN missile crewman), as well as the testimony of the service members in the article, tell a different story than your psychological studies.
Slashdot Mirror
Something precisely nobody has debated.
Which means we won't know if they slip or not - no matter what they can claim to be on schedule and adhering to their plan. It doesn't mean they aren't slipping.
Actually, it has a broad range of meaning and connotations - to wit: "It connotes an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past".
That's be useful - if and when the Falcon 9 enters revenue service.
Read any debate of climate science - heck, read the comments right here in this Slashdot article. The effect is clearly visible.
Except science doesn't work by debunking - it works by incorporating criticism. Or, in other and less kind words, you prove my point. AGW has become a religion, and like all religions resists criticism - to the point where it's supporters are no longer cognizant of how science works.
Yet AGW has become gospel *without* resisting 'attacks' (your words, not mine) for years. It remains gospel and goes out of its way to marginalize any criticism rather than to examine the evidence on it's own merits.
Yet, when another hypothesis 'proves' AGW it is accepted as soon as it is published. When criticism arises, it's attacked and supported refuse to review it. (And your use of 'denialist' just further proves my point. You aren't interested in science, you're a follower of a religion.)
That's pretty Orwellian, or like something out of Dilbert. "We're planning on a launch potentially as early as March or April, but if plans change and launch date slips it won't really be a slip because we'll be right on schedule according to the revised schedule".
A bit sensationalist for the overall program, less so for SpaceX and the Falcon 9. SpaceX doesn't have unlimited funding or unqualified political support. A failure could indeed have significant repercussions, a string of failures (as the Falcon I had) could spell the end of SpaceX's NASA contract of not of SpaceX itself.
And when you multiple those cost x2 to equate to a low fidelity simulation of the delivery capability of the Shuttle on one flight (one Ariane 5/Falcon 9 flight for less cargo* than the Shuttle can deliver and one Ariane 5/Falcon 9 flight for fewer people)... The question of who is cheaper starts to get really interesting. (Assuming the lower bound of $250 million for a Shuttle flight priced at marginal cost is reasonable.)
This is one of the things we discovered when we added up the costs of using Russian Soyuz and Proton boosters as replacements for the Shuttle. The Shuttle seems more expensive because it swallows money in such huge chunks, other boosters sup more daintily but accomplish much less. (In the same way people often don't realize how renting an apartment costs more in the long run than purchasing a house.)
The other problem of course is determining exactly how much a Shuttle flight costs - since you can't buy one 'off the shelf' like you can more conventional launches.
* The Ariane 5 has a gross cargo capacity roughly equivalent to Shuttle's net capacity, but it's net capacity is significantly less due to the need to provide free flight capability for the delivered payloads.
How fortuitous, that's exactly what your reply is. Utter rubbish.
Yes, the rejection and marginalization of any results which don't accord with the politically correct and foreordained results is happening. Thus, that papers agreeing with the politically correct and foreordained results are being published means those papers are being accepted - not that they are open to criticism.
After all, Creation Scientists publish papers in journals all the time. But they don't accept criticism do they?
You assume that research invariably produces an incontrovertible and utterly final answer - when nothing could be further from the truth.
Take for example, from the Manhattan Project, the discovery of Plutonium's sensitivity to predetonation. When the fission properties of Plutonium were first explored, it was discovered and 'proven' that Plutonium would work in a gun type bomb. Later, when the properties were being studied more intensely (to refine the bombs design), and completely unexpectedly, Plutonium showed an apparent change in it's fission properties - tending to explode early, well before the [gun type] bomb could reach anything approaching it's theoretical performance. (In other words it would fizzle.) Worse yet, different samples showed different performances, and when the same samples were shipped to Berkley they showed performance not only different from their original research there, but also different from Los Alamos.
In the end it turned out that the difference in location of testing was one of the two keys - Los Alamos, being at higher altitude than Berkley, was subjected to a higher flux of cosmic rays. Those cosmic rays were fissioning P-240 that was present in the samples. The effect had not been previously discovered because the original (accelerator bred) had a far lower level of P-240 contamination than the (reactor bred) samples later used at Los Alamos. (And that the P-240 contamination level depended on the irradiation schedule and level during production.) The scientists had known about the P-240 contamination, but had originally dismissed it.
The entire Plutonium bomb project had to be redirected to discover a method of assembling a supercritical mass of Plutonium orders of magnitude faster than was possible in a gun - resulting ultimately in the implosion bomb. The production schedule at Hanford had to be modified to control the breeding of P-240.
Hell, speaking of Hanford, the reactors there (built according the best research of the time), failed to work initially because of a previously unsuspected decay chain and daughter product poisoning the reactions within the reactor.
This belief only exists among those who aren't actually conversant with the history of the development of nuclear arms. (And those who wish to find a 'hero' who stood up not only against the Nazi's but against nuclear arms.)
Except that one can see many risky programs being engaged in during the Nazi era, not producing any useful or timely results, completely without dire consequences for those engaged in the program. In fact much of the technology, and the brainpower that created it, that was so eagerly exploited by the Allies post war came from scientists and technicians engaged in such risky programs.
It is suspected that Heisenberg didn't get into the bomb business for two key reasons: First, in being increasingly out of the main stream of research he lacked critical information on nuclear science and thus could make little progress, and second he never gained any significant political backing for his research. (Politics was very important in Nazi Germany as various leaders vied for power, status, and influence within the hierarchy.) It also didn't help that German nuclear research was fragmented among multiple organizations and (again, because of politics) poorly coordinated. (This was a problem that plagued research in all fields throughout the Nazi era, research priorities were sensitive to the political fortunes of their patrons and a lack of central coordination and prioritization meant there was a great deal of duplication.)
It is also suspected that Heisenberg, like Von Braun, indulged in a little post war retcon to cover up his intellectual failures and to cast himself in a more positive light. In particular, the Farm Hall transcripts show Heisenberg as believing a uranium bomb was not possible.
No, he's ignoring the handful of years of increasingly politically motivated conclusions based on those decades of research.
The problem of course being that the models output no result but 'this is because of AGW'. Scientists predict a string of strong hurricane seasons 'because of AGW', and when they don't happen they update the model and 'discover' they didn't happen 'because of AGW'. Warm winter? AGW. Cold winter? AGW.
When the models keep being modified and produce the same output regardless of input - then something is up.
I can find thousands of articles on N-rays and luminiferous aether too.
Which totally misses the OP's point.
Which is that the scientists (and their political supporters) which you quote above insist that the studies criticizing them be reviewed and must be debunked* while simultaneously insisting that their work is above criticism. Thus 'skeptic' has become, as used by those scientists (and their political supporters) a pejorative term.
Real scientists welcome reviews of their work - but the ones you quote above (and their political supporters) go to great lengths to debunk and marginalize any reviews that don't meet their pre-ordained conclusions.
You then go further in accepting the received wisdom of the scientists (and their political supporters) and treating as though it were as well proven as DNA encoding, which it isn't. It has the appearance of so being, but that's because the scientists (and their political supporters) have spent such time and energy loudly insisting they are right and that anyone who claims otherwise is a 'skeptic'.
*Yes, not incorporated into the existing body of work as is usual in science, but debunked.
Um... So what? The price of anything I buy includes the transport costs, you can't just handwave them away.
Ah yes, what a wonderful solution - take it down because you were ordered to and then lie about it .
Except - you've done neither. You've lost the moral high ground because you've lied. You've lost your freedom of speech because you've bowed down to an organization that trumps your nations laws.
You obviously don't have to pay a gas bill.
Ah yes, we have infrastructure to move 'what little they do sell' so we must have the infrastructure to move much larger quantities. After all, we don't build freeways because two lane country roads are quite adequate.
Subsidies, tax incentives, and depreciation.
Oh, nothing could ever go wrong - after all, there's an automated translator! People who can talk to each other never fight after all.
Let's just say the weight of evidence is not against the school either. In fact, there's essentially zero evidence.
None of which changes the facts - we don't know how the school came into possession of the picture. Period, end of sentence.
Yes, and we even know the reason - the school is involved in a law suit.
Mostly because of twisted non logic like you exhibit above - the school hasn't protested it's innocence and slandered the poor kid, so they must be guilt. But the beauty of your non logic is that if the school protested its innocence, it that people like you would be among the first to cry "they're slandering the poor boy, he must be innocent and they must be guilty".
If the question at hand ("How did school come into the possession of the photograph?") could be answered with EXIF data, that would be an outstandingly useful comment. But we already fucking know the picture was taken with the laptop's webcam. Idiot.
Here's a free clue for you since you so badly need one: Try actually reading my original message. Once you've done so, you'll note that your quoted passage appears nowhere in it. Either reply to what I quoted and wrote, or go reply to the OP.
It would have been even better had he not used a rumor as the basic for accusations in the first place and waiting until the facts are in. But he's got an agenda to push, and like all pundits he's only important so long as he's got something worth publishing - the more controversial and likely to get eyeballs on the publisher the better. Facts are secondary to this the reality that agendas must be served.
Lets keep facts seperate from speculation and assumption here.
Absolutely incorrect on both counts, because we do not know how the school obtained the picture. Because of the acknowledged existence of the webcam security software virtually everyone is assuming the picture was obtained by the school via that software, and the plaintiffs are working very hard to make sure everyone makes that assumption - but there has not been one documented statement supporting that fact by either side. Nor was the student disciplined, though he was threatened with disciplinary action.
Actually, there are two problems on top of that: It's not clear that those representing the class have the legal standing to do so, and the settlement violates black letter law.
The state also has to ensure the settlement follows the law - which is precisely what the current hearings are about. The current settlement not only fails that test, but provides Google with the special privilege of being exempt from the law.
Actually, it can be trivially reduced to two sentences - which the OP brilliantly did.
Except you didn't summarize Google's position - you took the bitter core (Google wants to use other peoples content without going to the (currently) legally required trouble to obtain permission), and then heaped high fructose corn syrup and spin (Google will pay you for their thievery if you notice it has occurred*) on top.
It's the bitter core that people are objecting to, that Google seeks the right to violate black letter law at will. No amount of sugar or spin can make this palatable.
In other words, Google magnanimously will allow other people the right to violate black letter law as well, fully knowing that saying "any other party can scan/digitize/distribute if they want to" is tantamount to saying "any can write an OS who cares to". Not to mention that we still find the same bitter core under that sugar.
I think you grossly misunderstood the OP. He's pointing out that once one right currently enshrined in black letter law is overridden because it is inconvenient for Google to obey the law, then potentially other rights will similarly follow. Imagine Microsoft, or Bank of America, or Wal Mart finding protecting your rights inconvenient and, using the Google settlement as precedent, obtaining a ruling that they no longer need to follow laws inconvenient to them. There's potentially a great deal at stake here - and supporting Google because they dress in sheep's clothing is a grave mistake.
* This alone is a perversion of established legal principles - where I am not required to be aware of the thievery for the thief to liable for the theft.
Which is very true, but has precisely fuck-all to do with the OP's thesis, which was that individuals participating in remote control warfare weren't emotionally affected at all.
This does happen, it happens every day. (Hint: This is why the military provides service members access to counselors and chaplains as outlined in the article.) Once again, your belief that service members are mindless unfeeling automatons is utterly false.
You may believe so, but their own testimony (in the article) says differently, they are deeply emotionally involved. My own experience as an SSBN missile crewman (about the ultimate in depersonalization and desensitization) agrees with them and not with you.
I think you haven't a clue what you are talking about and need to spend more time talking with folks with actual experience and less time in a book lined ivory tower.
Well, my experience with actually being poised to destroy the world (SSBN missile crewman), as well as the testimony of the service members in the article, tell a different story than your psychological studies.