It can "overturn" as many regulations as it wants, and states like Washington can continue to pass tougher anti-spam laws and these state laws will apply.
Example: prohibition revoked, booze becomes legal at the federal level ---> many counties in the south pass laws forbidding alcohol (dry counties). We could very easily have "wet" spam states and "dry" spam states.
Plus I wasn't talking about the article at all, but responding to the previous poster, who I quoted directly.
They want the new Federal law, which would only forbid sending mail with forged headers but not other noxious practices like opt-out only lists- to superceed strong state laws.
State laws could remain stronger. Federal law would only trump state law if for some reason the state law was more lenient than the federal. The CA medical marijuana case is a prime example of a state attempting to create a law that effectively legalizes activities federal law prohibits. Likewise states often enact laws that are more "severe", for lack of a better word, than their federal counterparts. Again drugs are a good example. Someone accused of, say, cocaine possession or distribution would likely do better in federal court than in many state jurisdictions. See Clinton, Roger, who served less than two years for a crime often netting 20 plus years in the crusader Arkansas state courts of the 1980s.
My name's Tony. I work at a law firm. My PC used to hiccup at me all the time, blue screens here, illegal operations there. I didn't know what to do. All I know is the macros for my legal documents used to take forever. I'd start a macro then answer the phone, and it wouldn't be done until nearly after I said "Hello, this is MacIntyre and Finch, how can I help you?" How annoying???
That's when I realized I needed to address more than 4 gigs of memory. I mean really, when you're sending out C&D letters to 180 million people you need real power!
Then I got this new 64 bit Apple machine and it's like "WOW", man do those macros fly!!!
Simply read the next sentence. No military person likes to fight multiple enemies unless it is required.
If the military (or even the CIA) were deciding whether or not to go to war I'd feel differently, but in this case the politicians are. (L.A. Times, reg. required)
You mean like the way it's been approved by both houses of Congress?
Congress didn't declare war on Iraq, they delegated the option to the president.
But congress does all kinds of unconstitutional things all the time, hell it's almost part of their job. The delegating of the decision to have a war or not is what's unconstitutional about this. It's not like the judiciary can suddenly say to congress "Ya know, we're all kinda old and tired, would you guys mind adjudicating constitutional cases for us while we take the free Florida vacations we, uh, won?"
Neither can the president designate Strom Thurmon to be commander in chief for a weekend, 'though I hear that's what you get instead of a gold watch when you retire from the senate. Likewise, the ability to declare war can't be delegated, that's why they called it a "police action", which -is- "war", but if you say it quickly enough nobody'll notice, or else they'll think they're watching C.O.P.S. Thus moronic legal doublespeak.
Hell, maybe Saddam'll get caught sporting a sweet new mullet and hanging around his double wide shirtless for this particular "police action", but I kinda doubt it.
As a navy man owe up and call it a war, which is -exactly- what this "police action" will be. Hell, who wants to die in a simple "police action?" The moronic legal doublespeak necessary to choke this down the Constitution's throat is insufferable. Just changing the name of it doesn't the smallest difference, but it does insult people's intelligence.
Kinda reminds me of Blade Runner:
"Have you ever retired a human by mistake?"
I can assure you that there are other funds that allow us a great deal of R&D.
The gains the free speech movement of the 60s made were a result of campus activism, students protesting, holding "sit ins" and otherwise ramming heads against entrenched, often conservative, politicized interests on the board(s) of directors and university trustees (especially in California). Through these struggles many colleges and universities emerged as safe havens for civil rights and free speech, and the federal government evolved into a kind of "guarantor" of these rights.
Public and private institutions that accept federal funds (like UCSD) are on very tight reigns when it comes to imposing policies that would violate constitutional rights. Normally UCSD would be on shakey ground, and would rightly fear losing federal monies if the university were to implement policies denying students civil or constitutional rights (title IX is a perfect example).
In this case the Patriot Act has tossed everything around. The federal government is now passing laws that universities can use to control student expression. The Patriot Act is a convenient shield for the University, who seem as interested in the liability issues as whether or not these students "support" terrorists. The claim that the students are providing "communincation equipment" to these "terrorists" by linking is pretty far fetched.
From the article: "The information on the site, if you look at it, wasn't viewed as news by the institution, but information the site meant to build support for these organizations. It wasn't an impartial, balanced presentation with analysis or interpretation. These were sites that were trying to generate sympathy."
Hmm. Not impartial, unbalanced, devoid of analysis or intrepretation, nevertheless it sure sounds like free speech to me...
If M$ were to ignore the modders and in effect saturate the markets with below-cost 'doze boxes, such behavior would be startlingly similar to what got the anti-trust ball rolling in the first place.
Below cost Linux boxes...:)
I don't think MS was ever accused of under pricing their software...
Of course they've won in every arena they've entered too. Publisher is the best desktop publishing software, IIS the best web server, Money the best financial assistant, Bob the best desktop...
Before you say "But linux is free!", consider that you need training to use it.
And you don't need training to use MS products?
Microsoft doesn't always have the better product, but because they've had a monopoly on the desktop they can put all their applications and middleware in a position to compete (unfairly) with better offerings.
And $400+ for WinXp Home + Office isn't a reasonable price, especially when most home users will never do anything as complicated as a mail merge.
If stating that the subject imagined it is the reaction from skeptics, why would claims that people imagine it be laughed out of academic circles?
I don't know why, but it happens. It's circular logic and probably springs from a prejudice on the part of skeptics (or in Persinger's case because he has expanded his theories to include explanations of UFO sightings, and having anything to do with UFOs will get you branded a kook).
To skeptics 1) OOBE aren't real, thus 2) reports of OOBE must be imagined or faked. 3) Trying to fit OOBE into a traditional scientific framework (even if the claims are that OOBE are imagined, not what Persinger claims btw) the research is discounted because 1)OOBE aren't real.
I know it doesn't make sense, but it happens alarmingly frequently on the fringes of science. That Persinger's research has gone essentially unnoticed but a chance discovery by "legitimate" scientists gets CNN's attention is typical.
I could go on about this for hours, but sorry to be less than clear earlier. If I find an article that better sums up my position I'll either post it here or post a link.
If all paranormal investigators claimed is that people sometimes imagine themselves floating outside their bodies, nobody would have called that "lies, hoaxes, or intentional self deceptions" (I'm sure it could be caused by drugs in some cases, though).
Several paranormal investigators have claimed exactly this, but the subject has, despite plenty of research, been laughed out of "serious" academic circles. A good summary on this flavor of research can be found here:
When people like Michael Persinger do serious research in "paranormal" areas (and it looks like he came pretty damn close to nailing this neurological/OOBE phenomenon on the head) they get tossed into the "kook" bin.
The typical reaction from skeptics to people reporting OOBEs is to a priori refute the claim, usually stating the subject simply imagined it, or was dreaming, or offering other less satisfying explanations. The reasoning never gets to the point of examining whether the subjects have actually extra-located their consciousnesses or only sincerely believe they have done so, because OOBE's don't exist.
Funny how if something is described and in many instances accurately reported by "pseudoscientists" it gets discounted, but when "real" scientists stumble over it accidentally suddenly they've "discovered" something.
The news here is that the "real" scientists, who for years have claimed out of body experiences were either lies, hoaxes, drug induced hallucinations or intentional self deceptions, have verified an experience paranormal investigators have been describing for a long time.
And outside programmers have long complained that Microsoft makes it hard for them to create software compatible with Windows-based computers.
Read: Microsoft makes it hard for outside programmers to create software that interoperates fully and fluidly within Microsoft's mono(po)lithic operating system.
The editor clearly couldn't distinguish the operating system from the computer, a damning sign of Microsoft's monopoly.
Knoppix does much the same. Every machine I've stuck a Knoppix boot cd into came up fine and on our network without having to so much as touch the system configuration.
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/
I thought about mass producing knoppix cds, like a hundred or so, and putting them in cheap sleeves and donating them to the local Salvation Army, Goodwill, whatever. Might come in handy one day when current versions of GNU/Linux are illegal because of DRM.
Also, has anyone thought that these "live" cds such as Knoppix would be perfect for someone who wants to do things anonymously (like terrorists, or even people with less to hide), i.e. drop by a local library, university, or retailer, pop in a Knoppix cd, cruise the 'net and send a few emails, then pop out the cd and reboot the machine. Let's see the thought police undelete something from a swap file in ram...
I get a -lot- of voice mail spam from vendors at my job, and recently we fell behind in our cable ISP service (providing a distant building with VPN and internet services 'til we finish running a conduit).
I get back from lunch the other day and find that among my regular voicemail spam (users needing connectivity, fires in server closets, IRS, etc.) someone named Dan Tma'bakchatal (a phonetic spelling to be sure, one has to wonder if his -real- first name was Dan) called and simply left his name and phone number.
Now normally I get all kinds of spam from vendors each week, usually someone pretending to be my friend ("Hey buddy, I heard you needed some more of those 100b switches, well, GOOD NEWS! Seems France's switched over to smoke signals and has nearly thirty thousand 100 port fiber switches, in almost new condition, ready to pick up, how many can I put you down for...?) but this time, -soley- because his name was so strange, I decided to call him.
As it turns our we were behind with our cable charge by about $600 (we -thought- we'd be cancelling sooner, but alas...) so it was actually good he called).
I can't help wonder how long government and private bill collectors can reasonably expect call backs (or emailbacks) on intrusive anonymous robotic calls...
"Hello Mr. X, please call 1-800-xxx-xxxx""
When does "I never respond to automated messages" become a reasonable answer...?
That would mean you'd have to have an (at least) official Apple X86 motherboard or get the bios ROM from some other source (p2p networks) so that you could only run the code on "Apple Macintosh" branded x86 systems (picture the G4 case with an intel board in it). You'd probably still have to drop down the 30-50% premium for owning a "Mac".
And as far as PPC emulation being too slow for classic mode, I believe Apple could do it, especially considering the minimum hardware requirements called for by most classic mode software (a G3 at 300Mhz should run most of them fine) relative to the speeds of x86 hardware in a the next year (3.5 Ghz or more). I think an emulation platform ten times faster should make up for the difference.
Seems it might be better to make a "catcher's mitt" with the inflatable, have it move at close to the speed of the offensive material in the same direction to gently "catch" it. Then, when most of the material is pressed against the giant cushion(and by proxy against the gas that inflated the cushion) pop off a nuke or so in the middle. Gives the nuke a medium to convey kinetic energy to the offensive mass, plus we could prolly get it on CNN by that time.
Darwin has nothing to do with it. Folks in the US and Europe are pretty much sheltered until they're nearly twenty, plenty of time to reproduce and pass on those genes (teen age pregnancy...)
Wealth isn't important, influence isn't important, only finding someone ugly enough, or dumb enough, or to be dumb enough yourself, to find a partner and have a baby. Hell, it's pretty much a one step process (Insert Tab A into Slot B), much easier than assembling a table from Ikea, there's no instinct for that.
The smart person you describe, "better able to survive in society" wouldn't have nearly the impact on the gene pool as a single uneducated welfare mother with a dozen "illegitimate" children.
Both will likely have 90%+ of their grandchildren live to reach the age of majority, only the single mother might have thirty or more. Big difference.
Some of the greatest social/economic mistakes in the past 150 years have come out of applying Darwin ian theory to systems where it shouldn't apply.
It would only matter if that 50 year old hadn't reproduced, and this procedure allowed him to breed. In other words, pretty unlikely to have any effect.
In fact, I'd argue basic medicine has eliminated survival of the fittest as a factor in human evolution, at least in the first world. The vast, vast majority of humanity in first and second world countries live past puberty and reproduce, and the third world isn't far behind.
Once people pass reproductive age they might as well drop dead, from an evolutionary standpoint.
Slashdot Mirror
for "Open"Exchange...?
It can "overturn" as many regulations as it wants, and states like Washington can continue to pass tougher anti-spam laws and these state laws will apply.
Example: prohibition revoked, booze becomes legal at the federal level ---> many counties in the south pass laws forbidding alcohol (dry counties). We could very easily have "wet" spam states and "dry" spam states.
Plus I wasn't talking about the article at all, but responding to the previous poster, who I quoted directly.
-dameron
State laws could remain stronger. Federal law would only trump state law if for some reason the state law was more lenient than the federal. The CA medical marijuana case is a prime example of a state attempting to create a law that effectively legalizes activities federal law prohibits. Likewise states often enact laws that are more "severe", for lack of a better word, than their federal counterparts. Again drugs are a good example. Someone accused of, say, cocaine possession or distribution would likely do better in federal court than in many state jurisdictions. See Clinton, Roger, who served less than two years for a crime often netting 20 plus years in the crusader Arkansas state courts of the 1980s.
But I'm not a lawyer so your mileage may vary...
-dameron
Hi,
My name's Tony. I work at a law firm. My PC used to hiccup at me all the time, blue screens here, illegal operations there. I didn't know what to do. All I know is the macros for my legal documents used to take forever. I'd start a macro then answer the phone, and it wouldn't be done until nearly after I said "Hello, this is MacIntyre and Finch, how can I help you?" How annoying???
That's when I realized I needed to address more than 4 gigs of memory. I mean really, when you're sending out C&D letters to 180 million people you need real power!
Then I got this new 64 bit Apple machine and it's like "WOW", man do those macros fly!!!
Hi! My name's Tony and I work for the RIAA...
-dameron
are being pirated in Taiwan anyway...?
-dameron
Simply read the next sentence. No military person likes to fight multiple enemies unless it is required.
If the military (or even the CIA) were deciding whether or not to go to war I'd feel differently, but in this case the politicians are. (L.A. Times, reg. required)
-dameron
You mean like the way it's been approved by both houses of Congress?
Congress didn't declare war on Iraq, they delegated the option to the president.
But congress does all kinds of unconstitutional things all the time, hell it's almost part of their job. The delegating of the decision to have a war or not is what's unconstitutional about this. It's not like the judiciary can suddenly say to congress "Ya know, we're all kinda old and tired, would you guys mind adjudicating constitutional cases for us while we take the free Florida vacations we, uh, won?"
Neither can the president designate Strom Thurmon to be commander in chief for a weekend, 'though I hear that's what you get instead of a gold watch when you retire from the senate. Likewise, the ability to declare war can't be delegated, that's why they called it a "police action", which -is- "war", but if you say it quickly enough nobody'll notice, or else they'll think they're watching C.O.P.S. Thus moronic legal doublespeak.
Hell, maybe Saddam'll get caught sporting a sweet new mullet and hanging around his double wide shirtless for this particular "police action", but I kinda doubt it.
-dameron
As a navy man owe up and call it a war, which is -exactly- what this "police action" will be. Hell, who wants to die in a simple "police action?" The moronic legal doublespeak necessary to choke this down the Constitution's throat is insufferable. Just changing the name of it doesn't the smallest difference, but it does insult people's intelligence.
Kinda reminds me of Blade Runner:
"Have you ever retired a human by mistake?"
I can assure you that there are other funds that allow us a great deal of R&D.
Like the "new" sonar that kills whales..?
-dameron
Yes, but it would have no greater effect than a smaller potion, you'd just have to ingest more of it to get the desired effect.
paraphrased of course,
-dameron
angel wings...
-dameron
Public and private institutions that accept federal funds (like UCSD) are on very tight reigns when it comes to imposing policies that would violate constitutional rights. Normally UCSD would be on shakey ground, and would rightly fear losing federal monies if the university were to implement policies denying students civil or constitutional rights (title IX is a perfect example).
In this case the Patriot Act has tossed everything around. The federal government is now passing laws that universities can use to control student expression. The Patriot Act is a convenient shield for the University, who seem as interested in the liability issues as whether or not these students "support" terrorists. The claim that the students are providing "communincation equipment" to these "terrorists" by linking is pretty far fetched.
From the article:
"The information on the site, if you look at it, wasn't viewed as news by the institution, but information the site meant to build support for these organizations. It wasn't an impartial, balanced presentation with analysis or interpretation. These were sites that were trying to generate sympathy."
Hmm. Not impartial, unbalanced, devoid of analysis or intrepretation, nevertheless it sure sounds like free speech to me...
-dameron
Below cost Linux boxes...:)
I don't think MS was ever accused of under pricing their software...
-dameron
Before you say "But linux is free!", consider that you need training to use it.
And you don't need training to use MS products?
Microsoft doesn't always have the better product, but because they've had a monopoly on the desktop they can put all their applications and middleware in a position to compete (unfairly) with better offerings.
And $400+ for WinXp Home + Office isn't a reasonable price, especially when most home users will never do anything as complicated as a mail merge.
-dameron
This, however, is clearly what it is purported to be. Why obfuscate the issue?
This is pretty damn far from Von Däniken.
-dameron
I don't know why, but it happens. It's circular logic and probably springs from a prejudice on the part of skeptics (or in Persinger's case because he has expanded his theories to include explanations of UFO sightings, and having anything to do with UFOs will get you branded a kook).
To skeptics 1) OOBE aren't real, thus 2) reports of OOBE must be imagined or faked. 3) Trying to fit OOBE into a traditional scientific framework (even if the claims are that OOBE are imagined, not what Persinger claims btw) the research is discounted because 1)OOBE aren't real.
I know it doesn't make sense, but it happens alarmingly frequently on the fringes of science. That Persinger's research has gone essentially unnoticed but a chance discovery by "legitimate" scientists gets CNN's attention is typical.
I could go on about this for hours, but sorry to be less than clear earlier. If I find an article that better sums up my position I'll either post it here or post a link.
-dameron
Several paranormal investigators have claimed exactly this, but the subject has, despite plenty of research, been laughed out of "serious" academic circles. A good summary on this flavor of research can be found here:
link
When people like Michael Persinger do serious research in "paranormal" areas (and it looks like he came pretty damn close to nailing this neurological/OOBE phenomenon on the head) they get tossed into the "kook" bin.
The typical reaction from skeptics to people reporting OOBEs is to a priori refute the claim, usually stating the subject simply imagined it, or was dreaming, or offering other less satisfying explanations. The reasoning never gets to the point of examining whether the subjects have actually extra-located their consciousnesses or only sincerely believe they have done so, because OOBE's don't exist.
But apparently now they do.
-dameron
Funny how if something is described and in many instances accurately reported by "pseudoscientists" it gets discounted, but when "real" scientists stumble over it accidentally suddenly they've "discovered" something.
The news here is that the "real" scientists, who for years have claimed out of body experiences were either lies, hoaxes, drug induced hallucinations or intentional self deceptions, have verified an experience paranormal investigators have been describing for a long time.
-dameron
Read: Microsoft makes it hard for outside programmers to create software that interoperates fully and fluidly within Microsoft's mono(po)lithic operating system.
The editor clearly couldn't distinguish the operating system from the computer, a damning sign of Microsoft's monopoly.
It makes perfect sense in that regard.
-dameron
Knoppix does much the same. Every machine I've stuck a Knoppix boot cd into came up fine and on our network without having to so much as touch the system configuration.
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/
I thought about mass producing knoppix cds, like a hundred or so, and putting them in cheap sleeves and donating them to the local Salvation Army, Goodwill, whatever. Might come in handy one day when current versions of GNU/Linux are illegal because of DRM.
Also, has anyone thought that these "live" cds such as Knoppix would be perfect for someone who wants to do things anonymously (like terrorists, or even people with less to hide), i.e. drop by a local library, university, or retailer, pop in a Knoppix cd, cruise the 'net and send a few emails, then pop out the cd and reboot the machine. Let's see the thought police undelete something from a swap file in ram...
-dameron
I get a -lot- of voice mail spam from vendors at my job, and recently we fell behind in our cable ISP service (providing a distant building with VPN and internet services 'til we finish running a conduit).
I get back from lunch the other day and find that among my regular voicemail spam (users needing connectivity, fires in server closets, IRS, etc.) someone named Dan Tma'bakchatal (a phonetic spelling to be sure, one has to wonder if his -real- first name was Dan) called and simply left his name and phone number.
Now normally I get all kinds of spam from vendors each week, usually someone pretending to be my friend ("Hey buddy, I heard you needed some more of those 100b switches, well, GOOD NEWS! Seems France's switched over to smoke signals and has nearly thirty thousand 100 port fiber switches, in almost new condition, ready to pick up, how many can I put you down for...?) but this time, -soley- because his name was so strange, I decided to call him.
As it turns our we were behind with our cable charge by about $600 (we -thought- we'd be cancelling sooner, but alas...) so it was actually good he called).
I can't help wonder how long government and private bill collectors can reasonably expect call backs (or emailbacks) on intrusive anonymous robotic calls...
"Hello Mr. X, please call 1-800-xxx-xxxx""
When does "I never respond to automated messages" become a reasonable answer...?
-dameron
That would mean you'd have to have an (at least) official Apple X86 motherboard or get the bios ROM from some other source (p2p networks) so that you could only run the code on "Apple Macintosh" branded x86 systems (picture the G4 case with an intel board in it). You'd probably still have to drop down the 30-50% premium for owning a "Mac".
And as far as PPC emulation being too slow for classic mode, I believe Apple could do it, especially considering the minimum hardware requirements called for by most classic mode software (a G3 at 300Mhz should run most of them fine) relative to the speeds of x86 hardware in a the next year (3.5 Ghz or more). I think an emulation platform ten times faster should make up for the difference.
-dameron
Seems it might be better to make a "catcher's mitt" with the inflatable, have it move at close to the speed of the offensive material in the same direction to gently "catch" it. Then, when most of the material is pressed against the giant cushion(and by proxy against the gas that inflated the cushion) pop off a nuke or so in the middle. Gives the nuke a medium to convey kinetic energy to the offensive mass, plus we could prolly get it on CNN by that time.
-dameron
Darwin has nothing to do with it. Folks in the US and Europe are pretty much sheltered until they're nearly twenty, plenty of time to reproduce and pass on those genes (teen age pregnancy...)
Wealth isn't important, influence isn't important, only finding someone ugly enough, or dumb enough, or to be dumb enough yourself, to find a partner and have a baby. Hell, it's pretty much a one step process (Insert Tab A into Slot B), much easier than assembling a table from Ikea, there's no instinct for that.
The smart person you describe, "better able to survive in society" wouldn't have nearly the impact on the gene pool as a single uneducated welfare mother with a dozen "illegitimate" children.
Both will likely have 90%+ of their grandchildren live to reach the age of majority, only the single mother might have thirty or more. Big difference.
Some of the greatest social/economic mistakes in the past 150 years have come out of applying Darwin ian theory to systems where it shouldn't apply.
It would only matter if that 50 year old hadn't reproduced, and this procedure allowed him to breed. In other words, pretty unlikely to have any effect.
In fact, I'd argue basic medicine has eliminated survival of the fittest as a factor in human evolution, at least in the first world. The vast, vast majority of humanity in first and second world countries live past puberty and reproduce, and the third world isn't far behind.
Once people pass reproductive age they might as well drop dead, from an evolutionary standpoint.