Senate Bill 47 (Yee) expands the definition of “assault weapons” to BAN the future sale of rifles that have been designed/sold and are equipped to use the “bullet button” or similar device, requires NEW “assault weapon” registration of ALL those semi-auto rifles that are currently possessed to retain legal possession in the future, and subjects these firearms to all other “assault weapons” restrictions.
My impression of him is that he is a reactionary that responds to any situation in the most forceful way possible to please the pundits who are calling for action that the constituency doesn't actually want. He doesn't actually understand what he's legislating against in many situations, like as mentioned below the ban on video games for minors but because the pundits call for it something needs to be done.
The 3d printer is no different. Damn all the useful things that can be done with it he doesn't understand it and it can do one bad thing so ban it.
It'll go away soon enough. I remember reading an article in PopSci probably 15 years ago about new technology that would embed a sensor in an officers ring so that if it moved more than a couple inches from his hand it would not fire.
I suppose technology has shifted to the point now where it is easier to miniaturize so that it is feasible without having a huge grip, however the only reason that this type of technology gets any attention at all is because, all conspiracy theory aside, it will give any state hostile towards guns an excuse to ban any gun without this technology. I have no doubt with how hard California makes it to stay within it's restrictions that they would be the ones leading the charge and expect the other 40 shall issue / no restriction (AK,VT) states to follow.
That's all well and fine, my S3 is currently running it, however the vast majority of users will not be able to install CWM or use ADB on their own even with a tutorial. It also has the consequence of voiding the warranty. Yes you could flash back but lets face it most people can barely operate Google Maps without throwing a fit much less flash a ROM.
If this succeeds what you are going to see is a slow down in the market. Manufacturers will not be able to push but a handful of phones every year because they will be expected to support them. So we, the power users, will go from having a new top tier phone every 6 months to maybe one a year, or maybe not at all because there will a monetary consequence to pushing the envelope with brand new hardware combination in every iteration.
The carriers are going to fight it tooth and nail as well because not only will they be forced to get the updates out in a timely fashion (looking at you Verizon), they will be required to utilize their sacred bandwidth, which they already charge too much for, to push the updates.
You are correct on all points about the Tea Party being co-opted by politicians and the OWS movement also summarily moving in the same direction except it is being subverted by the socialist agenda. I personally believe that this is in no small part due to the 24 hour news cycle pulling some half literate socialist off the street and giving them a bit of barely comprehensible air time. The same thing could be found when the Tea Party movement started, the media grabbed one of the tricorne wearing, misspelled sign waving, isolationists stuck them up in front of the camera and said "Well here's what the Tea Party is." Obviously there are problems on all sides, however the majority of Americans straddle the fence on many many issues despite what the media and the politicians would like you to believe.
There really is no fix all to the situation, however I feel that term limits to prevent professional politicians, and hard caps on campaign spending would be a step in the right direction. It was probably a Slashdot commentator who said it best (so I'm going to rip them off) "Did you ever stop to wonder why someone would spend 80 million dollars to be elected to a 180 thousand dollar a year job? Obviously there is something else going on behind the scenes."
Granted everyone makes those types of comments however the problem with this situation is that you have an official from an agency established to serve the tax payers deriding one of their constituents to a journalist on record.
There is such a thing as discretion and this DA just stick his foot in his mouth because this is going to be thrown back at him. Hopefully there will be consequences when the next elections come around and constituents finally decide that they cannot have their rights further eroded.
I travel a lot and I read a lot so I've also been eyeing an ereader for quite some time. Until recently I've pretty much refused to buy one because I send paperbacks back and forth with my father after one of us gets done with the book and the idea of DRM offends me on pretty much every level. I also read quite a bit of sci-fi, specifically from the publisher Baen, and was unable to find any of that specific publishers books on Amazon or BN. After some searching I found that Baen does offer Ebooks for a couple of dollars less on older releases than a paperback and about half the price on new releases (hardcover only at the moment) through their own webstore without any DRM restrictions. As a result I am buying an ereader when I get home and will be directly supporting a publisher who sees that DRM is an awful idea, and has the advantage of not supporting a middleman like Amazon or BN.
I hope more Slashdotters will support publishers like Baen on their endeavor if only to show that DRM is not needed.
Steve Jobs was stopped with those items because he was passing through a public terminal to get to his aircraft. If he had boarded through a private gate onto the flight line, which many airports have, he would not have been subject to that scrutiny. It would be similar to boarding a small two seat aircraft at any grass strip or private FBO which are not subject to any security oversight.
Having had a run with the joys of bored suburb code enforcement officers I can tell you first had how nasty these things can get because of an obscure law/city ordinance.
In my case I just told them that it wasn't going to happen and if they wanted to challenge me on it I'll be happy to take them to court and see what a judge thinks. That and I walked down the street and left a 15 minute message on her answering machine with the addresses of every single house on the street who also didn't comply with her petty nit picking, there was something like 10 of them...
There was an article a while back (no I can't find it with the 2 minutes of searching I did) where a magazine compared the ticket sales of economic recessions during the 90's and early 2000's. The summation of the article was that even with major blockbuster films, like Starwars ep 1, Hollywood made less money than the year before because times were good and people were doing things besides going to the movies, but in economic downturns they actually made more money. The theory was that audiences will attend movies to distract them from all the problems that they have instead of stewing in them.
I'll post it if I can find it but the laziness is running deep tonight.
Eventually the curves will cross where the cost of a gallon of gas will cost more than it will to charge my car or take public transport, its just a matter of time. At the moment though it just makes sense to buy a cheap very fuel efficient car and call it a day. The US was not designed for public transport we built the country around the interstate infrastructure and suddenly we realize that "Hey oil won't last forever and damn it is getting expensive to drive my '69 GTO Judge everywhere." Unfortunately it is too late to build a public transport system it and would simply be more cost effective to research alternative fuels or power sources than to have our frugal (sarcasm implied) government buy land, lay track or dig tunnels, and pay operators.
As for the tailpipe comment, yea the question was rhetorical (I am just about done with my A&P certifications to allow me to work on aircraft power plants and airframes so I know a thing or two about them):-p Just highlighting the great American thought process.
The Tesla is great and all but if you read the article you would see that the 100k price tag is a bit of a roadblock that developers are trying to overcome.
For example, I buy a 50k Lotus Elise which the TESLA chassis is based on. It gets 25ish mpg and has a 5 second 0-60 and is fun as hell to drive. Though I get crappy gas mileage compared to the TESLA it will be a long time before I hit that extra 50k that I would need to spend to just start to have the TESLA pay for itself. Then you factor in maintenance (Special facility only for the TESLA since it is all electric) and figure the batteries last 10 years maybe (you cannot avoid some sort of wear and tear on the batteries and they are not 100% efficient) then factor in the electricity cost.
Starts to add up after a while eh? Over time the TESLA is not more cost effective to have around and will probably cost quite a bit more than an fairly high end sports car in the first place.
Now buying something like a SMART which gets 50+ mpg and costs around 15k (loaded) then you have a car that will be economical and good for the environment as well.
As a side note most of the idiots in office here in the US have managed to convince the general public that nuclear obviously means bomb not a more efficient cleaner fuel so we are still stuck with dirty power in most regions of the country. If there were some alternatives like wind, geothermal, or tidal in the US it would be great but what do we have instead? Fossil fueled electrical plants! Just displace those emissions from a car to the power plant can't be a foul if you don't see it coming out of your tailpipe right?
The only thing I care about seeing on HD-DVD or Blue-Ray is what I usually buy, anime. If anyone else has purchased any lately I know you would be happy to see that 23.00 dollar price tag since I usually get gouged for about 27-30 dollars per DVD that I buy retail. Of course since the price quoted is wholesale it will probably end up costing the same price anyway so in reality it changes nothing for me.
Finer circuitry decreases the size of a chip and cuts per-unit production costs. It also helps chips process data faster.
I only have one thing to say to that:
The difference is this is Microsoft. The XBox was supposed to be a flop by all accounts and reviews, however you are dealing with a company who can just buy any company to get whatever they want. That and they took something like a 1 billion dollar loss on Xbox systems just to keep it alive, they made that back by now of course. Deep pockets go a long long way, and Microsoft has more money than they know what to do with.
I remember something vaguely about the ISP that I work with having to keep a list of know kiddie porn sites on a list and block those sites through some sort of firewall or IP filtering system on our network. I think this was some sort of mandate in the state I worked in. I am not sure if it was actually ever enforced or not but this may be something similar.
The reason businesses can do things the way that they do is because there are no constitutional protections for the people against large businesses because the constitution was designed to protect the people against the government. If you really want a solution there should be several privacy amendments. You can find the exact same problem with private investigators or that whole national ID system.
I wonder what it would do to people should they start to exercise again. I know its not a heart replacemnt but if the blood needs to flow through faster because you are using the oxygen in it at a higher rate would it respond to that? If not rehab is going to be quite a pain in the arse.
Either way this is pretty cool its a step in the right direction for modern medicine and in search of the heart replacement. I dont know if I could live with my chest sounding like a washing machine all the time though that may drive me a little nuts.
I got them all right, what most people forget is that reputable companies will never send you a link to update your account info. They will give instructions but never the latter. That is the dead give away that it is fake.
I am very happy to see that NASA is taking the next generation of spacecraft very seriously. It is rather sad that it took two accidents to see that they really did need a new space craft.
Hopefully it will get into space sooner and revive public interest in the space program though, since the private sector is very influential in pushing technology forward.
Not to correct you or be insulting or anything but the standard of living is measured by how much money is REQUIRED to maintain a certain type of life style. Standard of living costs vary even within cities in the US, example being its cheaper to live in Mississippi than it is to live in Uptown Manhattan. Please check into this before insulting me next time. Please?
You have to understand that the standard of living is much lower up in Canada than in the US. They also provide all the healthcare for their citizens, I will not argue that it may be flawed but you can say that about anything. I really like Canada I go there several times a year to visit, the people are much nicer and laid back than the standard high strung American. I do not think I would live there despite this.
Slashdot Mirror
A couple of years ago if I looked at the news I'd have thought sharks grew legs, walked up on land, and started eating children out of playgrounds.
Never underestimate the medias ability to over report and hyper sensationalize the fixation of the moment.
This is the same person that wants:
Senate Bill 47 (Yee) expands the definition of “assault weapons” to BAN the future sale of rifles that have been designed/sold and are equipped to use the “bullet button” or similar device, requires NEW “assault weapon” registration of ALL those semi-auto rifles that are currently possessed to retain legal possession in the future, and subjects these firearms to all other “assault weapons” restrictions.
http://legiscan.com/CA/bill/SB47/2013
Senate Bill 108 (Yee) requires mandatory locked storage of firearms within a locked house regardless of whether anyone is present.
http://legiscan.com/CA/bill/SB108/2013
My impression of him is that he is a reactionary that responds to any situation in the most forceful way possible to please the pundits who are calling for action that the constituency doesn't actually want. He doesn't actually understand what he's legislating against in many situations, like as mentioned below the ban on video games for minors but because the pundits call for it something needs to be done.
The 3d printer is no different. Damn all the useful things that can be done with it he doesn't understand it and it can do one bad thing so ban it.
It'll go away soon enough. I remember reading an article in PopSci probably 15 years ago about new technology that would embed a sensor in an officers ring so that if it moved more than a couple inches from his hand it would not fire.
I suppose technology has shifted to the point now where it is easier to miniaturize so that it is feasible without having a huge grip, however the only reason that this type of technology gets any attention at all is because, all conspiracy theory aside, it will give any state hostile towards guns an excuse to ban any gun without this technology. I have no doubt with how hard California makes it to stay within it's restrictions that they would be the ones leading the charge and expect the other 40 shall issue / no restriction (AK,VT) states to follow.
That's all well and fine, my S3 is currently running it, however the vast majority of users will not be able to install CWM or use ADB on their own even with a tutorial. It also has the consequence of voiding the warranty. Yes you could flash back but lets face it most people can barely operate Google Maps without throwing a fit much less flash a ROM.
If this succeeds what you are going to see is a slow down in the market. Manufacturers will not be able to push but a handful of phones every year because they will be expected to support them. So we, the power users, will go from having a new top tier phone every 6 months to maybe one a year, or maybe not at all because there will a monetary consequence to pushing the envelope with brand new hardware combination in every iteration.
The carriers are going to fight it tooth and nail as well because not only will they be forced to get the updates out in a timely fashion (looking at you Verizon), they will be required to utilize their sacred bandwidth, which they already charge too much for, to push the updates.
A moderate opinion on slashdot? How dare you!
You are correct on all points about the Tea Party being co-opted by politicians and the OWS movement also summarily moving in the same direction except it is being subverted by the socialist agenda. I personally believe that this is in no small part due to the 24 hour news cycle pulling some half literate socialist off the street and giving them a bit of barely comprehensible air time. The same thing could be found when the Tea Party movement started, the media grabbed one of the tricorne wearing, misspelled sign waving, isolationists stuck them up in front of the camera and said "Well here's what the Tea Party is." Obviously there are problems on all sides, however the majority of Americans straddle the fence on many many issues despite what the media and the politicians would like you to believe.
There really is no fix all to the situation, however I feel that term limits to prevent professional politicians, and hard caps on campaign spending would be a step in the right direction. It was probably a Slashdot commentator who said it best (so I'm going to rip them off) "Did you ever stop to wonder why someone would spend 80 million dollars to be elected to a 180 thousand dollar a year job? Obviously there is something else going on behind the scenes."
Granted everyone makes those types of comments however the problem with this situation is that you have an official from an agency established to serve the tax payers deriding one of their constituents to a journalist on record.
There is such a thing as discretion and this DA just stick his foot in his mouth because this is going to be thrown back at him. Hopefully there will be consequences when the next elections come around and constituents finally decide that they cannot have their rights further eroded.
I travel a lot and I read a lot so I've also been eyeing an ereader for quite some time. Until recently I've pretty much refused to buy one because I send paperbacks back and forth with my father after one of us gets done with the book and the idea of DRM offends me on pretty much every level. I also read quite a bit of sci-fi, specifically from the publisher Baen, and was unable to find any of that specific publishers books on Amazon or BN. After some searching I found that Baen does offer Ebooks for a couple of dollars less on older releases than a paperback and about half the price on new releases (hardcover only at the moment) through their own webstore without any DRM restrictions. As a result I am buying an ereader when I get home and will be directly supporting a publisher who sees that DRM is an awful idea, and has the advantage of not supporting a middleman like Amazon or BN.
I hope more Slashdotters will support publishers like Baen on their endeavor if only to show that DRM is not needed.
Steve Jobs was stopped with those items because he was passing through a public terminal to get to his aircraft. If he had boarded through a private gate onto the flight line, which many airports have, he would not have been subject to that scrutiny. It would be similar to boarding a small two seat aircraft at any grass strip or private FBO which are not subject to any security oversight.
I actually laughed at that quote too.
Having had a run with the joys of bored suburb code enforcement officers I can tell you first had how nasty these things can get because of an obscure law/city ordinance.
In my case I just told them that it wasn't going to happen and if they wanted to challenge me on it I'll be happy to take them to court and see what a judge thinks. That and I walked down the street and left a 15 minute message on her answering machine with the addresses of every single house on the street who also didn't comply with her petty nit picking, there was something like 10 of them...
There was an article a while back (no I can't find it with the 2 minutes of searching I did) where a magazine compared the ticket sales of economic recessions during the 90's and early 2000's. The summation of the article was that even with major blockbuster films, like Starwars ep 1, Hollywood made less money than the year before because times were good and people were doing things besides going to the movies, but in economic downturns they actually made more money. The theory was that audiences will attend movies to distract them from all the problems that they have instead of stewing in them.
I'll post it if I can find it but the laziness is running deep tonight.
Can the US claim Quebec and Nova Scotia since the Appalachian mountains run into them?
Eventually the curves will cross where the cost of a gallon of gas will cost more than it will to charge my car or take public transport, its just a matter of time. At the moment though it just makes sense to buy a cheap very fuel efficient car and call it a day. The US was not designed for public transport we built the country around the interstate infrastructure and suddenly we realize that "Hey oil won't last forever and damn it is getting expensive to drive my '69 GTO Judge everywhere." Unfortunately it is too late to build a public transport system it and would simply be more cost effective to research alternative fuels or power sources than to have our frugal (sarcasm implied) government buy land, lay track or dig tunnels, and pay operators.
:-p Just highlighting the great American thought process.
As for the tailpipe comment, yea the question was rhetorical (I am just about done with my A&P certifications to allow me to work on aircraft power plants and airframes so I know a thing or two about them)
The Tesla is great and all but if you read the article you would see that the 100k price tag is a bit of a roadblock that developers are trying to overcome.
For example, I buy a 50k Lotus Elise which the TESLA chassis is based on. It gets 25ish mpg and has a 5 second 0-60 and is fun as hell to drive. Though I get crappy gas mileage compared to the TESLA it will be a long time before I hit that extra 50k that I would need to spend to just start to have the TESLA pay for itself. Then you factor in maintenance (Special facility only for the TESLA since it is all electric) and figure the batteries last 10 years maybe (you cannot avoid some sort of wear and tear on the batteries and they are not 100% efficient) then factor in the electricity cost.
Starts to add up after a while eh? Over time the TESLA is not more cost effective to have around and will probably cost quite a bit more than an fairly high end sports car in the first place.
Now buying something like a SMART which gets 50+ mpg and costs around 15k (loaded) then you have a car that will be economical and good for the environment as well.
As a side note most of the idiots in office here in the US have managed to convince the general public that nuclear obviously means bomb not a more efficient cleaner fuel so we are still stuck with dirty power in most regions of the country. If there were some alternatives like wind, geothermal, or tidal in the US it would be great but what do we have instead? Fossil fueled electrical plants! Just displace those emissions from a car to the power plant can't be a foul if you don't see it coming out of your tailpipe right?
It was called a phone book.
I suppose the counter argument could be that they just published their phone book online with a search functionality.
The only thing I care about seeing on HD-DVD or Blue-Ray is what I usually buy, anime. If anyone else has purchased any lately I know you would be happy to see that 23.00 dollar price tag since I usually get gouged for about 27-30 dollars per DVD that I buy retail. Of course since the price quoted is wholesale it will probably end up costing the same price anyway so in reality it changes nothing for me.
Finer circuitry decreases the size of a chip and cuts per-unit production costs. It also helps chips process data faster.
I only have one thing to say to that:
Remember the 478 socket P4 Prescott?
Last time I buy into that load of crap.
Or maybe I am just bitter that I did.
The difference is this is Microsoft. The XBox was supposed to be a flop by all accounts and reviews, however you are dealing with a company who can just buy any company to get whatever they want. That and they took something like a 1 billion dollar loss on Xbox systems just to keep it alive, they made that back by now of course. Deep pockets go a long long way, and Microsoft has more money than they know what to do with.
I remember something vaguely about the ISP that I work with having to keep a list of know kiddie porn sites on a list and block those sites through some sort of firewall or IP filtering system on our network. I think this was some sort of mandate in the state I worked in. I am not sure if it was actually ever enforced or not but this may be something similar.
The reason businesses can do things the way that they do is because there are no constitutional protections for the people against large businesses because the constitution was designed to protect the people against the government. If you really want a solution there should be several privacy amendments. You can find the exact same problem with private investigators or that whole national ID system.
I wonder what it would do to people should they start to exercise again. I know its not a heart replacemnt but if the blood needs to flow through faster because you are using the oxygen in it at a higher rate would it respond to that? If not rehab is going to be quite a pain in the arse.
Either way this is pretty cool its a step in the right direction for modern medicine and in search of the heart replacement. I dont know if I could live with my chest sounding like a washing machine all the time though that may drive me a little nuts.
I got them all right, what most people forget is that reputable companies will never send you a link to update your account info. They will give instructions but never the latter. That is the dead give away that it is fake.
I am very happy to see that NASA is taking the next generation of spacecraft very seriously. It is rather sad that it took two accidents to see that they really did need a new space craft.
Hopefully it will get into space sooner and revive public interest in the space program though, since the private sector is very influential in pushing technology forward.
I did it again, I did mean cost not standard, thank you to those that corrected me not those that insulted
Not to correct you or be insulting or anything but the standard of living is measured by how much money is REQUIRED to maintain a certain type of life style. Standard of living costs vary even within cities in the US, example being its cheaper to live in Mississippi than it is to live in Uptown Manhattan. Please check into this before insulting me next time. Please?
You have to understand that the standard of living is much lower up in Canada than in the US. They also provide all the healthcare for their citizens, I will not argue that it may be flawed but you can say that about anything. I really like Canada I go there several times a year to visit, the people are much nicer and laid back than the standard high strung American. I do not think I would live there despite this.