I've read that this is quite a common excuse used by people caught in posession of child pornography in the UK. They say "look my wi-fi connection isn't encrypted, it could have been a hacker that put those images there". Apparently it doesn't work as a defence because they are responsible for the security of their own computer.
Interestingly though, if they catch someone stealing an Internet connection via unsecured wi-fi, it's the person who is using the connection that is at fault, not the person who's failed to secure their Internet connection.
That's not interesting at all - it's simply an extension of the 'unlocked door' doctrine. I.E. just because you leave your door unlocked, that does not grant permission for someone to enter it univited. (Unless one is maintaining an 'attractive nuisance', like a pool for example - then the onus transfers back to the owner of the door.)
I don't think the police should be allowed to use illicitly gained information or that they should be allowed to encourage private citizens to commit felonies.
Thing is, 4th Amendment protections only prohibit the government from illegally searching your property. If a burglar breaks into your house and steal a sack of the counterfeit money you're printing then later gets caught and fingers you, the 4th Amendment doesn't apply. They still need a warrant to search your place, but the sack of C-notes with damp ink are easily enough to get one. Now, if the government hires a burglar, that's a 4th Amendment no-no; otherwise, you can press charges for criminal trespass if you like-- from your prison cell.
Mostly correct. If they police hires someone to perform a police function, then that person is considered to have been properly deputized - and is thus considered, under the law, as if he himself were a police officer. Thus; if the police hires the burglar to obtain evidence that they could not otherwise have obtained (I.E. in place of a search warrant); then the evidence is tainted and is not admissible in court.
Honestly, there's not much in Tennessee that's special (I've lived here for all 18 years of my life)
I suspect your belief that there is little special in Tennessee has more to with your lack of experience than any lack in the state. Grow up and get out more.
It remains to be seen if this is a real program, or just the latest in a series of press releases and power points, or the latest time a low-level Chinese space official voiced some wishful thinking that the mass media trumpeted as fact. (In fact the article clearly states, that this is sourced from a mid-level bureaucrat - not the Chinese goverment.)
As a side note: It's fascinating to watch the slashdot hivemind doublethink in these articles. The same publication that would be roasted pro forma when it publishes on the topic of computers or IT is treated as tablets brought down the mountain when it comes to the Russian and Chinese space programs.
Ahhh, because it isn't easier to design a system that has tougher constraints? Or maybe you want to argue that for launch, weight isn't a major constraint?
Certainly weight is constraint - but it's far from the only one.
[snippage more clueless nonsense]
Limit your criticisms to subjects that you actually know something about...
I am in fact arguing from what I know something about. The problem is you haven't a clue what *they* are talking about, nor a clue about the issues involved. (And I generally take marketing speech, which is what both quotes are, with a largish grain of salt. Both quotes are, at least in part, FUD to anyone who cares to listen that *they* are a better deal than the 'other guys'. And given they niether has produced a flight vehicle yet, while 'the other guys' have...)
One of the basic ideas of a constitutional state is that a human is treated as a human and is not degraded to a tool. This is exactly what would've happened if she did not wipe those files: By providing evidence against herself, she would've been used as a tool against herself. It is one of her basic rights to deny having to provide evidence against herself.
No, your basic right is to 'not incriminate oneself (via testimony)'. The courts have long held that physical evidence was not (for this purpose) testimony. The Court, in requesting her unaltered hard drive, was doing no different than when the Court collects clothing from a murder suspect to check for blood or asks the bank to provide the records of an individual suspected of fraud.
It maybe is a "disregard for the judicial process", but I think the stronger harm for the "judicial process" is forcing someone to provide evidence against him- or herself. This is such a fundamental idea that I really don't get how the judge missed it.
The problem lies not with the courts - but with your understanding of the law.
Actually, you are assigning motive to me in the absence of evidence.
No, I am reading the words you write - not just the Ask Slashdot question, but your subsequent replies.
To perfect your analogy, consider what would happen if the senior welder walked through and you demanded he weld a pipe to demonstrate his understanding of the importance of maintaining the static pressure, and having a man watching that pressure, in the main cooling loop. Wait, you say, that doesn't make sense. Exactly.
Actually - that's where you are wrong. It makes *perfect* sense for him to demonstrate his prowess as a welder under those circumstances - because if he doesn't maintain that prowess, he cannot adequately supervise and train his juniors.
Once the appropriate authority establishes that the guy has the necessary welding skills, you don't ask him to keep welding as a way of exploring the depth of his fitness to act as senior, you instead should be asking fitness related questions.
One of the key elements of the fitness of a welder - is (oddly enough) his ability to weld. If that ability is not demonstrated, then it fades.
The two sections I quote above are exactly the attitude I'm trying point out - "hey, I'm senior, I shouldn't have to do this stuff".
In your senior / junior example, you miss an important point. The "most proper" way for a senior to train a junior with respect to "how would you find the index of an element of a sorted array with a particular value" demands the answer "I'd use bsearch". The follow up question "how does bsearch work" would have been appropriate. What I encountered instead was a demand that I reinvent the wheel letter-perfect instead.
The former method produces people who can look stuff up in a cookbook - it does not demonstrate understanding of the principles. The latter method demonstrates the understanding of the principles.
In our perfected analogy, it only takes one basic programming exercise to find out whether I have basic programming skills.
That would be true - if your 'perfected' analogy had much bearing on the real world. It doesn't. Niether programming (or welding) is so simple that a single exercise demonstrates full prowess. (And again, here is the haughty attitude to which I refer.)
Actually, I showed no disdain at all. I carefully and cheerfully complied. I even kept the mood up and remained positive through the entire process.
[snippage more disdainful and derogatory material by the OP.]
Which, of course, is why your Ask Slashdot is written in a tone that is disdainful and deriding of the process and the interviewers.
Now, while I've never been involved in job interviews of the type you went through - I did sit on submarine and watchstation qual boards (and signed the cards), and when a senior person came through I'd hit him hard with the low level stuff. Why? Because a senior is expected to supervise and train his juniors. If he doesn't know the low level stuff, he can't do that.
each pound of beef requires six pounds of corn that could be eaten by us instead. When you look at the numbers for meat, its a depressing story.
When you look at the facts however - it's much less depressing. A goodly percentage of a corn kernel is cellulose, which we cannot digest, and cows can.
As Staton says, Thompson's methods found that Pac Man was 62% violent, Dig Dug was 67% violent, and Centipede was 97% violent (!). These results (which, not so coincidentally, were expunged from the final report) indicate that the whole method is flawed.
How precisely do they indicate the study was flawed? (I.E. in technical terms - not "but duude, Centipede is way so not violent".) Any game that involves shooting a simalcrum of an actual creature must perforce be similiar in violence levels to Pac-Man (where the monsters eat the protagonist) and Dig Dug (where the protagonist inflates the monsters until they explode).
As usual, Wikipedia has an excellent article on the whole thing...
ROTFLMAO. 'Excellent' only by the standards of (say) a fourth grade book report. It's the Wikipedia's usual mix of poorly organized fact thoroughly mixed with fantasy, fiction, and speculation such that it's impossible to discern the difference.
This new craft is supposed to be based upon the proven Apollo system, which is completely paid for.
It's 'based on' the Apollo system in the same sense that a 2006 Corvette is 'based on' a 1966 Corvette or the latest CPU from Intel is 'based on' the 8086.
Why is it taking longer to develop a craft which is basically an improvement on what we had 40 years ago?
Mostly because their is little resemblence between the two models except at the most superficial levels. They are using Apollo specs and modern equipment - equipment that doesn't exist except as spec sheets. (Not to mention we can no more quickly conjure up a modern Apollo than we can a modern '66 Corvette from scratch. Many components are no longer manufactured, manufacturing methods have changed, etc... etc...) Car manufacturers typically take 4-8 years to bring a new model to market, and they do this *every year*. Ditto for a new airliner, and airframe manufacturers have decades of experience and ongoing processes. (Which NASA and its contractors significantly don't.)
Using modern design and manufacturing techniques, plus modern materials combined with the fact that the research is already done, is it unreasonable to expect a quicker turnaround?
Yes, it's very unreasonable - because you have a vast misunderstanding of what is involved. (No offense, but few people who haven't studied the programs appreciate the magnitude of the task.) 'Modern design techniques' aren't magic wands, nor are 'modern manufacturing techniques' - you still have to do all the development, analysis, design, integration, testing, qualification, etc..., etc... Modern stuff is a bit faster at doing the calculations and writing up and distributing the paperwork/research/specs/etc..., but the actual work and skull sweat still takes considerable time.
Take for example the CAD/CAM software they'll need to design and integrate the capsule - software at this level is extremely specialized. You can't simply take the program that Boeing uses for airliners, or GM for cars, or Electric Boat for submarines and start designing a capsule. These are three different programs, each optimized for their particular use. You can't simply buy Microsoft Industrial Design XP 2006, install it and go to work. It will have to be created practically from scratch. (You can't go back to the old ways either - without starting from scratch.)
Or to take something very basic to the new spacecraft - the structure of the crew compartment. Attached somewhere to this will be the flight control computer - which will weigh a quarter of the Apollo era computer and take up about a third of its volume. This means you have to redesign the structure to mount the computer - which changes loads, vibration modes, etc... etc... (Even just sliding an adapter into place, a bad idea for various reasons, will start the same cascade.) Cabling will be different, which means new holes for the clamps, (which also changes loads and modes). Both the changes to the computer and the changes caused by the computer will change the center of gravity, which effects aerodynamic performance, loads on the escape system and parachutes, etc... etc... And that's just *one* change among thousands - each of which interacts with the others.
They want to have people in it in orbit by 2014, 8+ years of development time. Didn't Apollo go from nothing to guy on the moon in about the same timeframe?
Apollo, in it's early years, had a much larger budget.
"'EBay's core (auction) performance is suffering tremendously,' says Steve Grossberg, a longtime videogame seller on eBay. He says he now lists an item four times on average in order to sell it, up from two listings two years ago.
And four years before that, it was only once if you had something of actual value to sell. Why the change? Because eBay is constantly flooded with new sellers who are ever willing to undercut the existing sellers - which brings buyers to eBay and keeps them coming back. So long as this supply of new sellers persists, eBay has no reason to change it's policies. (And there are no real policy changes they can make that will force people to buy anyhow.) eBay doesn't owe you a living Mr Grossberg.
[snippage nonsense demonstrating an utter ignorance of science.]
Myself, I think you've just learned a few big words and toss them around because it makes you feel learned and makes your easily impressed buddies think so too. But those of us who *do* understand science see right through the fraud you are.
Just like everything one learns, you should question what you learned in high school.
Oh, I do - every day. But there's a difference between questioning what you learned - and acting as if what you (supposedly) learned is meaningless. Again, educated people know the difference - but idiots act as if simply questioning, groundlessly, has meaning. The manner in which you keep tossing around words and concepts without regard to their meaning aptly demonstrates which category you fall into.
Now, I personally am extremely skeptical of anybody who claims they've managed to contruct a device that violates such a cherised and well-tested principle of physics as the conservation of energy. But if they can provide a repeatable demonstration of this, then I'll be forced to change my view of the world.
I agree 110%.
What I'm heaping scorn on is those who (seem to) believe that free energy is possible because 'science has been wrong before'.
I think the people mentioned in the article above are little more than snake oil vendors conning unwise investors out of their money. I think that's much more likely than the idea that they've found some interesting bit of physics which everybody was heretefor unaware. Especially physics involving magnets, which have been studied very carefully for a long time. But, I could be wrong. And any true scientist would admit that though one possibility was far more likely than the other, the chance for the other is not 0.
I'll give and grant that it's not impossible, but it is improbable - the chances, while nonzero, are so close to zero that for all practical purposes they are zero.
Within the limits of our technology, Newton was canon for centuries.
Was? try still is. Relativity and Quantum mechanics didn't replace Newton - because they describe different realms.
So what's your point, that you understand what Theory is? Theory is the "best working explanation". Doesn't mean that there isn't something better. I don't think you understand it at all.
My point is that anyone who thinks 'free energy must be possible' simply because science has been wrong in the past is clueless - especially people who act as if Newton's Laws have been replaced.
Centuries worth of students relying on Newton's discoveries thought the same way.
And they still think the same thing today - because Newton's Laws still hold.
Sorry Derek, you don't understand the concept of theory. It does NOT mean that this is Truth, it means that it is true as far as we currently understand it.
I understand the concept of theory. I also understand the more general concept of science. Between the two of these - I know that what the GP proposed is utter nonsense. This has been proven by decades experimental work as well as empirically. Anyone who just quotes definitions, as you do, doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.
He does admit, though, that all the electronics can interfere with a soldier's primary mission. "If you can't be comfortable being miserable, as it were, then you just won't make a good soldier. Technotoys are wonderful distractions, to be sure, but there's also a lot to be said for communal entertainment as well, cards with the guys, dominoes, and so on. Those types of activities build camaraderie far more than being hunched over a GameBoy for hours on end."
As it precisely echoes my experience serving in the USN - unit effectiveness and cohesiveness builds in direct proportion to the camaraderie among the troops. Camraderie builds on shared experience, not just the privations that come with being at sea or in the field; but in crowding around a shortwave set in a quonset hut in WII, or twenty of us crammed into a tiny lounge watching a movie we've seen a thousand times just for the tit shot in the last fifteen minutes in the 1980's.
Re:Sun Tzu and Machiavelli offer the opposite view
on
iPods at War
·
· Score: 1
As the length of a war increases, the length of tours of duty increase and the likelihood that the war can be won decreases. The most effective fighting force is one of fresh troops who know that they will not be staying long. The longer they stay in the theatre, the more demoralized they become and the less they care about the end of the war.
Real world experience suggests precisely the opposite. Troops in Vietnam knew that all they had to do was survive a year - and then they were going home. This lead to problems with morale, unit cohesiveness, and unit effectiveness caused by constant rotation of personell. On the other hand, field troops in WWII *knew* they were there for the 'duration'. Given a choice, and based on actual performance, I know which set of troops I'd want to have around me.
Re:Another good paragraph, more Catch 22
on
iPods at War
·
· Score: 1
Another thing about Catch 22 is that it showed how the first contention of the article, that soldiers used to go to battle with nothing more than a rifle and a backpack isn't true. Remember Orr, Yossarian's tent-mate? He was always adding stuff to the tent. Basically everytime he came into a scene, he was either being shot down or trying to get the gas stove working better. Or consider the show MASH. Hawkeye's tent was full of "luxury" items.
Orr and Hawkeye were in camp, not in battle; niether was forward deployed as the troops in Iran are. Troops in cantonment have always had better living conditions than troops in the field.
Ok these are fictional accounts, but based on non-fiction accounts I've read, I'd be willing to bet they were pretty close the real case in terms of personal possessions...at least for units that stayed in one place for any significant amount of time.
The key isn't whether you are in one place for a long time - but whether that place is in the field, or in the garrison.
Validation in the academic world, free or even cheap power has never done well because it's not money. Since the 1900's there have literally been thousands of perpetual motion and free power devices. Who's to say that every single one is bunk,
Who is to say? Anyone who paid attention to the their physics classes in High School.
[snippage tinfoil hat ravings and handwaving nonsense.]
Ya know, our (yours, mine,/. in general) skepticism is unquestionably well placed - free energy would collapse some economies, invigorate others, bring about new business opportunities, advance the living conditions of people stuck in third world countries - the actual ramifications are impossible to really get a grasp on.
Of course the actual ramifications are impossible to really get a grasp on - because to do so would require ripping the foundations of physics back to roughly the Middle Ages and starting over.
What does the label give you? A chance at a very, very small slice of a larger "pie," but really what's the advantage of that over having a much larger slice of a smaller pie?
Slashdot Mirror
That's not interesting at all - it's simply an extension of the 'unlocked door' doctrine. I.E. just because you leave your door unlocked, that does not grant permission for someone to enter it univited. (Unless one is maintaining an 'attractive nuisance', like a pool for example - then the onus transfers back to the owner of the door.)
Mostly correct. If they police hires someone to perform a police function, then that person is considered to have been properly deputized - and is thus considered, under the law, as if he himself were a police officer. Thus; if the police hires the burglar to obtain evidence that they could not otherwise have obtained (I.E. in place of a search warrant); then the evidence is tainted and is not admissible in court.
I suspect your belief that there is little special in Tennessee has more to with your lack of experience than any lack in the state. Grow up and get out more.
It remains to be seen if this is a real program, or just the latest in a series of press releases and power points, or the latest time a low-level Chinese space official voiced some wishful thinking that the mass media trumpeted as fact. (In fact the article clearly states, that this is sourced from a mid-level bureaucrat - not the Chinese goverment.)
As a side note: It's fascinating to watch the slashdot hivemind doublethink in these articles. The same publication that would be roasted pro forma when it publishes on the topic of computers or IT is treated as tablets brought down the mountain when it comes to the Russian and Chinese space programs.
Certainly weight is constraint - but it's far from the only one.
I am in fact arguing from what I know something about. The problem is you haven't a clue what *they* are talking about, nor a clue about the issues involved. (And I generally take marketing speech, which is what both quotes are, with a largish grain of salt. Both quotes are, at least in part, FUD to anyone who cares to listen that *they* are a better deal than the 'other guys'. And given they niether has produced a flight vehicle yet, while 'the other guys' have...)
No, your basic right is to 'not incriminate oneself (via testimony)'. The courts have long held that physical evidence was not (for this purpose) testimony. The Court, in requesting her unaltered hard drive, was doing no different than when the Court collects clothing from a murder suspect to check for blood or asks the bank to provide the records of an individual suspected of fraud.
The problem lies not with the courts - but with your understanding of the law.
No, I am reading the words you write - not just the Ask Slashdot question, but your subsequent replies.
Actually - that's where you are wrong. It makes *perfect* sense for him to demonstrate his prowess as a welder under those circumstances - because if he doesn't maintain that prowess, he cannot adequately supervise and train his juniors.
One of the key elements of the fitness of a welder - is (oddly enough) his ability to weld. If that ability is not demonstrated, then it fades.
The two sections I quote above are exactly the attitude I'm trying point out - "hey, I'm senior, I shouldn't have to do this stuff".
The former method produces people who can look stuff up in a cookbook - it does not demonstrate understanding of the principles. The latter method demonstrates the understanding of the principles.
That would be true - if your 'perfected' analogy had much bearing on the real world. It doesn't. Niether programming (or welding) is so simple that a single exercise demonstrates full prowess. (And again, here is the haughty attitude to which I refer.)
Oddly enough - this mentality did exist 800 years ago. Why do you think patents and copyrights were invented in the first place?
Which, of course, is why your Ask Slashdot is written in a tone that is disdainful and deriding of the process and the interviewers.
Now, while I've never been involved in job interviews of the type you went through - I did sit on submarine and watchstation qual boards (and signed the cards), and when a senior person came through I'd hit him hard with the low level stuff. Why? Because a senior is expected to supervise and train his juniors. If he doesn't know the low level stuff, he can't do that.
When you look at the facts however - it's much less depressing. A goodly percentage of a corn kernel is cellulose, which we cannot digest, and cows can.
How precisely do they indicate the study was flawed? (I.E. in technical terms - not "but duude, Centipede is way so not violent".) Any game that involves shooting a simalcrum of an actual creature must perforce be similiar in violence levels to Pac-Man (where the monsters eat the protagonist) and Dig Dug (where the protagonist inflates the monsters until they explode).
ROTFLMAO. 'Excellent' only by the standards of (say) a fourth grade book report. It's the Wikipedia's usual mix of poorly organized fact thoroughly mixed with fantasy, fiction, and speculation such that it's impossible to discern the difference.
It's 'based on' the Apollo system in the same sense that a 2006 Corvette is 'based on' a 1966 Corvette or the latest CPU from Intel is 'based on' the 8086.
Mostly because their is little resemblence between the two models except at the most superficial levels. They are using Apollo specs and modern equipment - equipment that doesn't exist except as spec sheets. (Not to mention we can no more quickly conjure up a modern Apollo than we can a modern '66 Corvette from scratch. Many components are no longer manufactured, manufacturing methods have changed, etc... etc...) Car manufacturers typically take 4-8 years to bring a new model to market, and they do this *every year*. Ditto for a new airliner, and airframe manufacturers have decades of experience and ongoing processes. (Which NASA and its contractors significantly don't.)
Yes, it's very unreasonable - because you have a vast misunderstanding of what is involved. (No offense, but few people who haven't studied the programs appreciate the magnitude of the task.) 'Modern design techniques' aren't magic wands, nor are 'modern manufacturing techniques' - you still have to do all the development, analysis, design, integration, testing, qualification, etc..., etc... Modern stuff is a bit faster at doing the calculations and writing up and distributing the paperwork/research/specs/etc..., but the actual work and skull sweat still takes considerable time.
Take for example the CAD/CAM software they'll need to design and integrate the capsule - software at this level is extremely specialized. You can't simply take the program that Boeing uses for airliners, or GM for cars, or Electric Boat for submarines and start designing a capsule. These are three different programs, each optimized for their particular use. You can't simply buy Microsoft Industrial Design XP 2006, install it and go to work. It will have to be created practically from scratch. (You can't go back to the old ways either - without starting from scratch.)
Or to take something very basic to the new spacecraft - the structure of the crew compartment. Attached somewhere to this will be the flight control computer - which will weigh a quarter of the Apollo era computer and take up about a third of its volume. This means you have to redesign the structure to mount the computer - which changes loads, vibration modes, etc... etc... (Even just sliding an adapter into place, a bad idea for various reasons, will start the same cascade.) Cabling will be different, which means new holes for the clamps, (which also changes loads and modes). Both the changes to the computer and the changes caused by the computer will change the center of gravity, which effects aerodynamic performance, loads on the escape system and parachutes, etc... etc... And that's just *one* change among thousands - each of which interacts with the others.
Apollo, in it's early years, had a much larger budget.
And four years before that, it was only once if you had something of actual value to sell. Why the change? Because eBay is constantly flooded with new sellers who are ever willing to undercut the existing sellers - which brings buyers to eBay and keeps them coming back. So long as this supply of new sellers persists, eBay has no reason to change it's policies. (And there are no real policy changes they can make that will force people to buy anyhow.) eBay doesn't owe you a living Mr Grossberg.
Myself, I think you've just learned a few big words and toss them around because it makes you feel learned and makes your easily impressed buddies think so too. But those of us who *do* understand science see right through the fraud you are.
Oh, I do - every day. But there's a difference between questioning what you learned - and acting as if what you (supposedly) learned is meaningless. Again, educated people know the difference - but idiots act as if simply questioning, groundlessly, has meaning. The manner in which you keep tossing around words and concepts without regard to their meaning aptly demonstrates which category you fall into.
I agree 110%.
What I'm heaping scorn on is those who (seem to) believe that free energy is possible because 'science has been wrong before'.
I'll give and grant that it's not impossible, but it is improbable - the chances, while nonzero, are so close to zero that for all practical purposes they are zero.
Was? try still is. Relativity and Quantum mechanics didn't replace Newton - because they describe different realms.
My point is that anyone who thinks 'free energy must be possible' simply because science has been wrong in the past is clueless - especially people who act as if Newton's Laws have been replaced.
And they still think the same thing today - because Newton's Laws still hold.
I understand the concept of theory. I also understand the more general concept of science. Between the two of these - I know that what the GP proposed is utter nonsense. This has been proven by decades experimental work as well as empirically. Anyone who just quotes definitions, as you do, doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.
As it precisely echoes my experience serving in the USN - unit effectiveness and cohesiveness builds in direct proportion to the camaraderie among the troops. Camraderie builds on shared experience, not just the privations that come with being at sea or in the field; but in crowding around a shortwave set in a quonset hut in WII, or twenty of us crammed into a tiny lounge watching a movie we've seen a thousand times just for the tit shot in the last fifteen minutes in the 1980's.
Real world experience suggests precisely the opposite. Troops in Vietnam knew that all they had to do was survive a year - and then they were going home. This lead to problems with morale, unit cohesiveness, and unit effectiveness caused by constant rotation of personell. On the other hand, field troops in WWII *knew* they were there for the 'duration'. Given a choice, and based on actual performance, I know which set of troops I'd want to have around me.
Orr and Hawkeye were in camp, not in battle; niether was forward deployed as the troops in Iran are. Troops in cantonment have always had better living conditions than troops in the field.
The key isn't whether you are in one place for a long time - but whether that place is in the field, or in the garrison.
Who is to say? Anyone who paid attention to the their physics classes in High School.
[snippage tinfoil hat ravings and handwaving nonsense.]
Of course the actual ramifications are impossible to really get a grasp on - because to do so would require ripping the foundations of physics back to roughly the Middle Ages and starting over.
- Small pie = $10k, you get to keep 90%.
- Large pie = $10m, you get to keep 1%.
You do the math.