But it wasn't thrown out in the trash./If/ one takes Anderson's suit at face value, the best one can argue is that it/may have been about/ to be thrown out into the trash. Going into a burnt-out structure to pick up artifacts that the previous crew may have missed is not the same thing as picking through the trash cans after the remaining debris has been tossed.
Moreover, if you look at the state's side of the story, the allegation is that the rocks were accounted for after the fire and went missing from a display case.
Another consideration is that the rocks are designated by federal law as "national treasures." Regardless of chain of custody, it may not be possible to claim private ownership. Depending on the interpretation of what that means, it could be that Anderson is the one who lacks standing to bring suit.
Lastly, and most importantly in my mind, all of the above points are from the legal point of view. They may or may not coincide with "the right thing to do." Before I feel comfortable making that sort of judgment, I would like more clarity on certain questions. For example, whether or not the rocks were really picked out of the rubble or whether they were taken out of a display case.
That is true, but the frequency of collisions that result in a train derailment does have something to do with it. So does the frequency of derailments that end in damage to the trains and/or harm to the passengers.
Be that as it may, I thought your summary misrepresented the discussion and, worse, was almost entirely disconnected from easily ascertainable facts that have been reported in that it only addresses the back and forth banter of the posters here at/. instead of addressing how well the posts correspond to the facts. At the very least, it twisted the point I had made.
Imagine my house burns down. Imagine that I take everything I can find of value from the rubble and then call in garbage trucks. If you go rooting around through the rubble/before/ it is loaded on the trucks, it's theft of my property regardless of whether or not it looks like all the remaining rubble is going to get thrown away. If you want to lay claim to anything I missed from going through the rubble, you have to ask my permission.
I don't think things change just because the state of Alaska was the owner rather than a private citizen.
The first is the question of ownership. It would seem, on the surface, that the "good will" moon rocks now belong to the nations and US states to which the federal government gave them.
But there is another issue: right to sell. Regardless of whether the nations and states that now own the rocks do, in fact, own the rocks, it is still against the law to sell the rocks. They are all designated as "national treasures." Regardless of who owns them, it is illegal to sell them.
I suspect that Anderson's lawsuit was intended to establish clear title so that he could turn around and sell the moon rocks. But even if he is successful on establishing clear title, he may not be able to legally sell them.
Moreover, if you read the coverage of Alaska Daily News, it becomes clear that there may not be a clear title. The state's version of events is that the moon rocks were accounted for after the fire and subsequently went missing.
It should read, "Someone responds to that post, highlighting how only Alaska state government and private individuals were involved."
At no point have I seen any news source that claims that any member of the Obama administration is involved in any way. Rather, the only government involvement to date is the state of Alaska's counter-suit against Anderson. NASA's alleged involvement consists of a/former/ investigator now working as a professor. So far as I can tell no active member of the federal government has been involved in any way.
If evidence arises to the contrary, I'm more than willing to change my mind on that. I've already changed my mind on whether the government is acting like a petty bully. If the report in Alaska News Daily is correct, this may be a simple case of looting/theft that had no leads until Anderson came forward by launching his suit to keep the rocks. If, as that report alleges, the rocks are presently in China, I find it likely that they have already been sold and the purpose of the suit is entirely to establish clear title to what may be stolen goods.
Guthienz and Riker weren't the only ones searching for Alaska's moon rocks. Alaska State Museum curator Steve Henrikson had been looking for them on and off since he was hired 21 years ago in Juneau. The story he pieced together didn't match Anderson's.
The last people to see the plaque, Henrikson said, were two museum employees who walked through the building after the fire. According to them, the moon rocks were intact, in a glass case. After that, museum staff discussed taking the plaque out of the burned-out area and putting it in a more secure part of the museum.
A few days later, a museum employee noticed it wasn't in the case. Instead there was just a clean square in the ash and dust where it had been sitting. She assumed Phil Redden, a museum curator, took it home for safe-keeping. But later, when he was asked, Redden denied it.
Shortly after the fire, the museum lost its funding and all the employees were let go, Henrikson said. That left the cleanup and inventory of the artifacts to employees in Juneau. It took them three years to go through everything. They kept expecting to find the moon rock plaque but they never did, Henrikson said.
This rock is at the same time worthless and priceless. But that is neither here nor there. I'm not arguing that the government should buy the rock. So far as I can tell, the government of Alaska has clear title.
What I'm suggesting is that the government recompense Anderson for the time he spent taking care of the rock just as it would paid to have it restored and paid people to curate the display if the state had found the rock in the museum debris.
But as for whether governments can be arbitrary in awarding such monies to people, it can and it does. In most states, the legislature is allowed to vote to spend money however it wants. And, there is a long track record of this starting with money given by the federal legislature to George Washington.
As of the present, the only government involved is the state of Alaska which filed a counter-suit to Anderson's pre-emptive lawsuit.
The timeline is basically: 1. Former investigator teaches college course encouraging students to track what happened to various moon rocks. 2. Student finds where the trail ends (at the museum fire) and encourages the state of Alaska to get involved in finding what happened. 3. Anderson sues for the right to keep the rock or have the state recompense him for keeping the rock safe. 4. The state of Alaska counter-sues.
At which of those four steps did the Obama administration, the present administrator of NASA, or anyone else in present federal government become involved?
It wasn't all that long ago that the train I normally take to and from class crashed catastrophically despite having one of those federally mandated positive train control systems. Google for DC redline collision. So far as the resulting investigation can tell, operator distraction wasn't a factor in that collision. The "operators" on the Metro rarely actually operate the train save for opening and closing the doors.
That said, the train usually is far safer than travel by automobile.
I do not believe any party to the suit is willing to admit that the moonrock was intentionally placed in a trash receptacle outside the building and curtilage of the museum and, thereby, abandoned.
And, even if that were the case, that does not mean that a finder has right to title if the object is found. If, as I believe the feds are claiming, the rocks don't actually belong to the museum but to the US government, then it doesn't matter if the museum did abandon the rocks.
That said, it's apparent that the government is being an asshat about the situation. What they should have done is graciously thanked Anderson for saving the rocks, offered to generously reimburse him for his time as steward of the rocks, and offered to put a commemorative plaque with his name on the new display. As it is, they're being petty bullies.
... but unless the state (or private owner if the property was leased) gave permission for a salvage operation, then this isn't a salvage operation.
By way of comparison, say my house burns down. You come and search through the rubble that used to be my basement and find something I missed. If you take it home, that's not salvage but theft. That the state owned the museum (or leased it) shouldn't make this much different.
But that's the legal perspective. It doesn't necessarily dovetail with what the right thing to do is.
That distracted driver is going to have to be going pretty fast to do any damage to a train.
That said, distracted train operators and bus drivers is also a real problem. About a year ago, the DC area had a spate of videos showing up on YouTube giving proof positive that bus drivers send texts, talk, and even read newspapers while driving.
(a) they're artifacts and (b) they're used either by bringing the stuff to be hammered to them or moving them to the stuff to be hammered.
That the tuskfish may bring the clams to the rocks from other locations to be opened on the rocks speaks to the rocks intentionally being used by tools. But if it turns out that the rocks just happen to be convenience, that suggests that it may not be intentional tool use, e.g. the tuskfish may bang the clams against all surfaces and just happen to notice the sound when hitting it against a rock and continue to do so.
When used from a library with access through those paywalls, Google Scholar is made of awesome. It effectively allows searching of virtually every major academic research database from one front end.
But, it would be nice if offered a full citation of articles it finds. The best research databases will offer up the abstract and full citation but not all of them do that.
The GP's phrasing "for all intents and purposes" actually makes more sense than "for all intensive purposes" unless one is using a very narrow and academic defintion of "intensive" that is derived from "intension" rather than being a description of relative extent.
it is interesting that most of the territory is an offensive strategy for Google.
But, even more interesting to me, is that they are serious fronts. The history of the IT industry is absolutely strewn with the corpses of companies that tried such strategies (e.g. the all fronts wars initiated by Novell and Netscape against Microsoft). But while I know many people that had hoped that Novell or Netscape would dethrone Microsoft with the respective software stacks, I don't know many people that thought that they could actually pull it off.
Google seems to be a serious contender in way that no one else has been for a long time.
Imagine a small beligerant country that mounts an attack on a superpower. The superpower retaliates and does no small amount of damage to the small country. The superpower wins by using the smaller country as an example of what happens when you screw around with the 800 pound gorilla on the block. The small country wins by having increased prestige among the countries that view the superpower as an aggressor.
Numerous articles about this sort of situation have been written in Foreign Policy and other serious journals. One of the most interesting was Lynch's article that used the public spat between JayZ and The Game as an analogue to tensions between the US and Iran.
But asymetric situations are just one non-zero sum way that war can play out. Imagine two superpowers along the lines of the totalitarian state in Orwell's 1984. Both profit from the state of perpetual warfare against the other because the war is a necessary condition of the form of social control used by the state. Lest you think this an implausible thought experiment, consider what would happen to the North Korean regime if it were not at war with South Korea.
On the one hand, I admire your attempt to stand on principle.
In practice, by using ddg you're still using Google (and Microsoft). I'm unclear whether ddg uses Google search proper, but it certainly does use searches returned by other Google APIs (e.g. blogspot).
Slashdot Mirror
Right, and when 2011 is over, it will be /after/ two decades.
Which means that /after a decade/ is not only correct but more correct than /after two decades/.
But it wasn't thrown out in the trash. /If/ one takes Anderson's suit at face value, the best one can argue is that it /may have been about/ to be thrown out into the trash. Going into a burnt-out structure to pick up artifacts that the previous crew may have missed is not the same thing as picking through the trash cans after the remaining debris has been tossed.
Moreover, if you look at the state's side of the story, the allegation is that the rocks were accounted for after the fire and went missing from a display case.
Another consideration is that the rocks are designated by federal law as "national treasures." Regardless of chain of custody, it may not be possible to claim private ownership. Depending on the interpretation of what that means, it could be that Anderson is the one who lacks standing to bring suit.
Lastly, and most importantly in my mind, all of the above points are from the legal point of view. They may or may not coincide with "the right thing to do." Before I feel comfortable making that sort of judgment, I would like more clarity on certain questions. For example, whether or not the rocks were really picked out of the rubble or whether they were taken out of a display case.
That is true, but the frequency of collisions that result in a train derailment does have something to do with it. So does the frequency of derailments that end in damage to the trains and/or harm to the passengers.
Be that as it may, I thought your summary misrepresented the discussion and, worse, was almost entirely disconnected from easily ascertainable facts that have been reported in that it only addresses the back and forth banter of the posters here at /. instead of addressing how well the posts correspond to the facts. At the very least, it twisted the point I had made.
Imagine my house burns down. Imagine that I take everything I can find of value from the rubble and then call in garbage trucks. If you go rooting around through the rubble /before/ it is loaded on the trucks, it's theft of my property regardless of whether or not it looks like all the remaining rubble is going to get thrown away. If you want to lay claim to anything I missed from going through the rubble, you have to ask my permission.
I don't think things change just because the state of Alaska was the owner rather than a private citizen.
Moreover, Alaska Daily News gives the state's version of events alongside Anderson's narrative. It isn't clear that Anderson's story is the correct one.
There are two different issues at work here.
The first is the question of ownership. It would seem, on the surface, that the "good will" moon rocks now belong to the nations and US states to which the federal government gave them.
But there is another issue: right to sell. Regardless of whether the nations and states that now own the rocks do, in fact, own the rocks, it is still against the law to sell the rocks. They are all designated as "national treasures." Regardless of who owns them, it is illegal to sell them.
I suspect that Anderson's lawsuit was intended to establish clear title so that he could turn around and sell the moon rocks. But even if he is successful on establishing clear title, he may not be able to legally sell them.
Moreover, if you read the coverage of Alaska Daily News, it becomes clear that there may not be a clear title. The state's version of events is that the moon rocks were accounted for after the fire and subsequently went missing.
It should read, "Someone responds to that post, highlighting how only Alaska state government and private individuals were involved."
At no point have I seen any news source that claims that any member of the Obama administration is involved in any way. Rather, the only government involvement to date is the state of Alaska's counter-suit against Anderson. NASA's alleged involvement consists of a /former/ investigator now working as a professor. So far as I can tell no active member of the federal government has been involved in any way.
If evidence arises to the contrary, I'm more than willing to change my mind on that. I've already changed my mind on whether the government is acting like a petty bully. If the report in Alaska News Daily is correct, this may be a simple case of looting/theft that had no leads until Anderson came forward by launching his suit to keep the rocks. If, as that report alleges, the rocks are presently in China, I find it likely that they have already been sold and the purpose of the suit is entirely to establish clear title to what may be stolen goods.
The state's side of the story:
From Alaska News Daily.
But if as the state alleges, the moon rocks were accounted for after the fire and then they just went missing from the building, then they probably didn't toss it and someone is probably a looter at best or an outright thief at worst.
According to Alaska Daily News, the state's side of the story is significantly different. That they aren't alleging outright theft is only because the statute of limitations has run out.
I may need to revise my estimation of the state as acting like a petty bully. If their story holds water, this may be a cut and dried case of looting.
This rock is at the same time worthless and priceless. But that is neither here nor there. I'm not arguing that the government should buy the rock. So far as I can tell, the government of Alaska has clear title.
What I'm suggesting is that the government recompense Anderson for the time he spent taking care of the rock just as it would paid to have it restored and paid people to curate the display if the state had found the rock in the museum debris.
But as for whether governments can be arbitrary in awarding such monies to people, it can and it does. In most states, the legislature is allowed to vote to spend money however it wants. And, there is a long track record of this starting with money given by the federal legislature to George Washington.
As of the present, the only government involved is the state of Alaska which filed a counter-suit to Anderson's pre-emptive lawsuit.
The timeline is basically:
1. Former investigator teaches college course encouraging students to track what happened to various moon rocks.
2. Student finds where the trail ends (at the museum fire) and encourages the state of Alaska to get involved in finding what happened.
3. Anderson sues for the right to keep the rock or have the state recompense him for keeping the rock safe.
4. The state of Alaska counter-sues.
At which of those four steps did the Obama administration, the present administrator of NASA, or anyone else in present federal government become involved?
How much might I think it takes to derail a train?
As a regular rider of the DC metro and Maryland commuter rail (MARC), I'm well aware of the frequency at which derailments and collisions occur.
It wasn't all that long ago that the train I normally take to and from class crashed catastrophically despite having one of those federally mandated positive train control systems. Google for DC redline collision. So far as the resulting investigation can tell, operator distraction wasn't a factor in that collision. The "operators" on the Metro rarely actually operate the train save for opening and closing the doors.
That said, the train usually is far safer than travel by automobile.
I do not believe any party to the suit is willing to admit that the moonrock was intentionally placed in a trash receptacle outside the building and curtilage of the museum and, thereby, abandoned.
And, even if that were the case, that does not mean that a finder has right to title if the object is found. If, as I believe the feds are claiming, the rocks don't actually belong to the museum but to the US government, then it doesn't matter if the museum did abandon the rocks.
That said, it's apparent that the government is being an asshat about the situation. What they should have done is graciously thanked Anderson for saving the rocks, offered to generously reimburse him for his time as steward of the rocks, and offered to put a commemorative plaque with his name on the new display. As it is, they're being petty bullies.
... but unless the state (or private owner if the property was leased) gave permission for a salvage operation, then this isn't a salvage operation.
By way of comparison, say my house burns down. You come and search through the rubble that used to be my basement and find something I missed. If you take it home, that's not salvage but theft. That the state owned the museum (or leased it) shouldn't make this much different.
But that's the legal perspective. It doesn't necessarily dovetail with what the right thing to do is.
That distracted driver is going to have to be going pretty fast to do any damage to a train.
That said, distracted train operators and bus drivers is also a real problem. About a year ago, the DC area had a spate of videos showing up on YouTube giving proof positive that bus drivers send texts, talk, and even read newspapers while driving.
It's expensive. But it's well worth it.
(a) they're artifacts and (b) they're used either by bringing the stuff to be hammered to them or moving them to the stuff to be hammered.
That the tuskfish may bring the clams to the rocks from other locations to be opened on the rocks speaks to the rocks intentionally being used by tools. But if it turns out that the rocks just happen to be convenience, that suggests that it may not be intentional tool use, e.g. the tuskfish may bang the clams against all surfaces and just happen to notice the sound when hitting it against a rock and continue to do so.
When used from a library with access through those paywalls, Google Scholar is made of awesome. It effectively allows searching of virtually every major academic research database from one front end.
But, it would be nice if offered a full citation of articles it finds. The best research databases will offer up the abstract and full citation but not all of them do that.
And Yahoo, and Bing, and all sorts of other search APIs.
So if the intent is to eliminate use of Google services, switching to ddg won't do it.
It does, however, minimize the amount of data that Google can collect from you as an individual using Google services.
"for all intended purposes"?
The GP's phrasing "for all intents and purposes" actually makes more sense than "for all intensive purposes" unless one is using a very narrow and academic defintion of "intensive" that is derived from "intension" rather than being a description of relative extent.
it is interesting that most of the territory is an offensive strategy for Google.
But, even more interesting to me, is that they are serious fronts. The history of the IT industry is absolutely strewn with the corpses of companies that tried such strategies (e.g. the all fronts wars initiated by Novell and Netscape against Microsoft). But while I know many people that had hoped that Novell or Netscape would dethrone Microsoft with the respective software stacks, I don't know many people that thought that they could actually pull it off.
Google seems to be a serious contender in way that no one else has been for a long time.
It can be, but it doesn't have to be.
Imagine a small beligerant country that mounts an attack on a superpower. The superpower retaliates and does no small amount of damage to the small country. The superpower wins by using the smaller country as an example of what happens when you screw around with the 800 pound gorilla on the block. The small country wins by having increased prestige among the countries that view the superpower as an aggressor.
Numerous articles about this sort of situation have been written in Foreign Policy and other serious journals. One of the most interesting was Lynch's article that used the public spat between JayZ and The Game as an analogue to tensions between the US and Iran.
But asymetric situations are just one non-zero sum way that war can play out. Imagine two superpowers along the lines of the totalitarian state in Orwell's 1984. Both profit from the state of perpetual warfare against the other because the war is a necessary condition of the form of social control used by the state. Lest you think this an implausible thought experiment, consider what would happen to the North Korean regime if it were not at war with South Korea.
On the one hand, I admire your attempt to stand on principle.
In practice, by using ddg you're still using Google (and Microsoft). I'm unclear whether ddg uses Google search proper, but it certainly does use searches returned by other Google APIs (e.g. blogspot).