Texas actually tried to pass a law that would kick the TSA out of the state. Actually thats hyperbole sorry, it would have just let Airports in Texas decide to fire the TSA agents, ignore TSA 'guidelines' (that we all know don't actually keep us safe) and instead hire private security that followed their own guidelines. Then the Feds threatened to take away federal licenses from all Texas airports basically making all companies flying out of airports there felons.
When the government stomps their boot down hard enough, there is no free market to run to
The facial recognition software is sold by private vendors as being '90% accurate' but then put clauses in the contracts that make sure they can't be sued if it turns out its more like 40% accurate in practice. Then you have the problem of incomplete databases of images, often collated without the users consent, and then you have nontransparent process of determining weather someone is a 'match' and no kind of audit system to prevent abuses
"Stuff they don't want you to know" is often a lighthearted podcast that entertains wild conspiracy theories. But in this episode they have Johnathan Strickland on to discuss facial recognition software and the ethical, social, legal, and technological problems that plague its use in the real world. This is literally "Stuff THEY don't want you to know" highly recommend giving it a listen:
http://www.stufftheydontwantyo...
I've been using a home blood pressure monitor kit to monitor my bp for two years. Been working real hard to bring my high blood pressure down. Recently felt success when my doc told me it was significantly reduced.
Financial Expert Peter Shiff made an interesting point in his podcast this week about crypocurrency valuations. As an Austrian Economist he believes the digital currencies will eventually implode and become worthless. The interesting point he made is that while bitcoins may be limited (they will eventually be capped at 21 billion bitcoins) cryptocurrencies ARENT. You can make as many cryptocurrencies as you wish, meaning they can be created in excess and therefore be exposed to inflationary or hyperinflationary effects that could cause a massive crash in the value of all crypto currencies.
That said, i'm still gonna wait for a crash in bitcoin value this year, and then buy some as a purely speculative bet
"I support Net Neutrality" but "I don't want the government to regulate the internet"
As much as I want to believe all the people that say regulating the Internet as a utility would allow us to keep net neutrality without allowing the FCC to impose other regulations.... I have to remind people that the FCC is why you can't say '7 naughty words' on television. They are also in the business of enforcing monopolistic advantages for the big companies that pay for spectrum at auction, instead of using the common-law property rights process that worked great in the early days of radio..
Cant trust the government to regulate the internet, but can't trust the companies either, since they have a history of manipulating state governments in order to secure their regional monopolies. ARGGGHH!!
"By turning over control to the big airlines" This is supposed to scare you and think "OMG, if the big airlines get control over the FAA then they will be able to beat up passengers legally!"
Air Traffic Control is mostly about co-ordinating which planes are going where so as to ensure they don't crash into each other during flight. The private airline companies may not have much incentive to offer great customer service, but they have a BIG incentive to make sure that their planes don't crash. Because A) You loose a lot of money if your plane crashes, its not just the cost of the plane, its the fact that your airline probably took out a loan to pay for that plane and now they have a monthly payment to make but no plane to generate ticket revenue to pay for it B) That is a heck of a hit to your insurance rate for the insurer to pay out to all the citizens that lost loved ones C) Its a really big PR hit to your sales
Let air traffic control be privatized like Trump wants. Its actually a pretty good idea whose origins go back to the Bill Clinton days. Just because the Air traffic control part would be privatized doesn't mean congress couldn't continues to pass laws ensuring fair business practices regarding prices or security.
So long as there are no economic incentives to make cars emissions' cleaner (coming from consumers preferably) and there are only negative economic incentives to meet the emission regulations (lots of design $$ spent up front to make a truly more efficient engine, but then perceived as 'under powered' by the consumers when you go to market) this problem will continue to happen.
honestly, instead of using the heavy hand of government to force motor companies to meet higher and higher emission standards, why not just offer tax incentives/cuts/deductibles to consumers for buying the most 'clean' cars. That way you incentivize consumers to reward companies for buying greener vehicles, and companies feel the need to compete and build the best product.
At first I was all like "Wow, surprisingly facebook is standing up for free speech! They are opposing authoritarian laws in other countries!" And then i was all like "Oh, they'll stop tho if they are threatened legally or the country will cut off access to facebook" and then i was like "Oh wait, they are still restricting free speech, just along their own content guidelines, making them no better than the countries who's laws they disobey"
On the one hand, if they are able to increase production and yields so we are able to feed more people, that would be great.
On the other hand, if they increase production and yields but a majority of it is wasted because the product expires and there isn't enough financing to ship it to starving countries (kinda like the situation the US is already in), that would be bad.
On the other other hand if they change the genetics and the plants end up turning everyone into zombies that would be bad
On the other other other hand if these CRISPR changes are good and we keep them around for 15 years and then realize those genes we edited out would have protected the plants from the latest fungal infection that wipes out half the crops and causes food shortages that would be really really bad!
Well i guess we just have to agree to disagree. My whole argument is Not Paying != Theft. your argument is that not paying someone is always going to be theft. I just disagree, because i believe in freedom
Except i DIDNT TAKE ANYTHING. To 'take' from someone is to leave them with 1 less item of what you took then they had before. When i download music, it is the equivalent of walking down the street, past a street performer. If i don't pay the street performer, even if i enjoyed their music, am i "Taking" or "stealing" from them? That is essentially what you are arguing. File sharing is not theft. File sharing is not piracy. File sharing is not immoral. File sharing is not unethical. File sharing is sharing information. Sharing information is free speech. File sharing should not be illegal.
I am arguing that the music industry 'lied' and used a misleading term 'piracy' to make people think it is unacceptable. When i download a file from someone else, no property is stolen, no person is left with less money than they had before. No person is left with less property than they had before. All that is occurring is the transmission of information, or bits. It is in no way related to theft or piracy. I think 'Internet Piracy' is the misleading term.
It is a crime according to federal laws yes, I am arguing that it should NOT be a crime. also, if the government makes it a crime to say the word 'henceforth' does that actually make it a crime? I would argue no. A crime has a victim, some act of violence or transgression committed on another person (victim) just because 500 stupid people in Washington D.C. pass a law doesn't automatically make it a crime. YMMV I am a Chaotic-Good alignment kinda guy, screw all those Lawfull-Good sheep.
If i am stupid enough to give that information away, of course it isn't a crime for someone to then share my health data with another.
But if someone got hold of that information by 'hacking' into my computer, bypassing my security measures, then that is 'digital tresspassing' they should be arrested for the digital equivalent of cracking the lock on my front door and walking inside to read my tax returns. But the actual act of transmitting that information (or any other information) should not be a crime
the only difference between 'sharing files with friends' and 'unlicensed wholesale distribution' is that technology has made the two pretty indistinguishable, and the lines which once made sense in the past are now extremely blurry.
And while i respect the jury right to nullification, and the jury process, and your rights to a jury, MAN can 12 random people be really really dumb, especially when the topic is really technical and they are being told the wrong facts from a judge and prosecutor
saying that "sharing information over the internet should never be a crime" is not the same as saying "no one should be able to keep secrets" You can encrypt a secret with your friends public key and send it to your friend. The point is the sharing of that information (encrypted or not) should never be a crime
If you put the word 'illegally' then yeah, i think most would say no. The problem is, i don't think it is EVER a crime to share ANY information. The only crime one can do with information is to bypass someones firewalls and security measures to gain access to information stored on a hard drive that does not belong to you. That to me is 'digital trespassing' but i don't think sharing information over the internet should ever be a crime, in any form whatsoever
basically the old napster, or limewire infrastructure. I haven't checked it out, but as i recall that model had problems with illegitimate files (e.g. you download Avengers, but the movie file is unplayable, or has 'cotton eyed joe' playing constantly over the movie audio) and relied on a central server to co-ordinate sharing of files. We need to develop a way to work around these issues
And use technology to create an amazing decentralized pirate torrenting site that can never be shut down!
Also we need to stop using the word 'pirate' i think we lost the intellectual debate the moment we adopted the term. Its 'file sharing". I bet you if i asked ten random people on the street if they think piracy is wrong, most would say yes. But if i asked 10 random people if 'file sharing' was wrong and should be illegal, they would say 'No! you should be able to share files"
When will Americans come to their senses and realize this failed experiment that is 'copyright' and 'intellectual property' is a disaster? When at first it only regulated the printing of books, which required expensive equipment to produce, it KINDA made sense, mostly only to the big publishers but the regular people didn't care that much so the politicians made copyright a law. Now that it has logically been extended to all kinds of things, code, tv shows, movies, and now jokes, and the length of copyright is 150 years + the life of the author i think its becoming absurdly clear that Copyright law is at its very core a violation of the freedom of speech. It does not encourage innovation. It does not protect the jobs of artists or creators. It does nothing but put more money in the pockets of lawers and giant corporations with the money to buy, and legally maintain and defend, their copyrights.
Flint, MI has terrible drinking water because of the incompetence and corruption of the local politicians who failed to do their duty, it has nothing to do with the EPA.
Also, last year private buisnesses contributed 2.2 BILLION dollars to basic scientific research, its completely false to say that private industry doesn't invest in basic science, technology, or RND.
And according to this article: http://abcnews.go.com/Technolo... the government actually gave better tax breaks for SUV purchases than Hybrid vehicles. When your system of government requires 'the right person' to be in charge in order to work, you have a failed system of government.
I would argue that the cost benefits of using less gas is what drove consumers to purchase hybrids, more than any tax breaks. Actually in California, i think the hybrid as a social status symbol (ooh look at me, i'm driving a hybrid because i care about the environment and YOU DONT) did more to drive sales of hybrids than any other vehicle.
Ugh! Everyone buys their shitty chips to put them in consumer electronics and they never release any technical papers or specifications, making it extremely difficult to reverse-engineer the chip and program open-source drivers. Of course the company could release open-source drivers BUT THEY NEVER DO! After tons of complaining from the community they MIGHT release a 'blob' binary that will work with linux but we can't trust it cause that blob could contain malware! Ugh why won't this horrible company contribute to the movement? Don't they realize there is money to be made in supporting the open source community?
Oh wait... I was thinking of broadcom, not qualcom.... my bad
Slashdot Mirror
Texas actually tried to pass a law that would kick the TSA out of the state. Actually thats hyperbole sorry, it would have just let Airports in Texas decide to fire the TSA agents, ignore TSA 'guidelines' (that we all know don't actually keep us safe) and instead hire private security that followed their own guidelines. Then the Feds threatened to take away federal licenses from all Texas airports basically making all companies flying out of airports there felons.
When the government stomps their boot down hard enough, there is no free market to run to
The facial recognition software is sold by private vendors as being '90% accurate' but then put clauses in the contracts that make sure they can't be sued if it turns out its more like 40% accurate in practice. Then you have the problem of incomplete databases of images, often collated without the users consent, and then you have nontransparent process of determining weather someone is a 'match' and no kind of audit system to prevent abuses
"Stuff they don't want you to know" is often a lighthearted podcast that entertains wild conspiracy theories. But in this episode they have Johnathan Strickland on to discuss facial recognition software and the ethical, social, legal, and technological problems that plague its use in the real world. This is literally "Stuff THEY don't want you to know" highly recommend giving it a listen: http://www.stufftheydontwantyo...
These aren't the directors you're looking for
I've been using a home blood pressure monitor kit to monitor my bp for two years. Been working real hard to bring my high blood pressure down. Recently felt success when my doc told me it was significantly reduced.
Now i don't know what to believe anymore
"The trees are really sneezing today" - Calvin
Financial Expert Peter Shiff made an interesting point in his podcast this week about crypocurrency valuations. As an Austrian Economist he believes the digital currencies will eventually implode and become worthless. The interesting point he made is that while bitcoins may be limited (they will eventually be capped at 21 billion bitcoins) cryptocurrencies ARENT. You can make as many cryptocurrencies as you wish, meaning they can be created in excess and therefore be exposed to inflationary or hyperinflationary effects that could cause a massive crash in the value of all crypto currencies.
That said, i'm still gonna wait for a crash in bitcoin value this year, and then buy some as a purely speculative bet
"I support Net Neutrality" but "I don't want the government to regulate the internet"
As much as I want to believe all the people that say regulating the Internet as a utility would allow us to keep net neutrality without allowing the FCC to impose other regulations.... I have to remind people that the FCC is why you can't say '7 naughty words' on television. They are also in the business of enforcing monopolistic advantages for the big companies that pay for spectrum at auction, instead of using the common-law property rights process that worked great in the early days of radio..
Cant trust the government to regulate the internet, but can't trust the companies either, since they have a history of manipulating state governments in order to secure their regional monopolies. ARGGGHH!!
"By turning over control to the big airlines" This is supposed to scare you and think "OMG, if the big airlines get control over the FAA then they will be able to beat up passengers legally!"
Air Traffic Control is mostly about co-ordinating which planes are going where so as to ensure they don't crash into each other during flight. The private airline companies may not have much incentive to offer great customer service, but they have a BIG incentive to make sure that their planes don't crash. Because A) You loose a lot of money if your plane crashes, its not just the cost of the plane, its the fact that your airline probably took out a loan to pay for that plane and now they have a monthly payment to make but no plane to generate ticket revenue to pay for it B) That is a heck of a hit to your insurance rate for the insurer to pay out to all the citizens that lost loved ones C) Its a really big PR hit to your sales
Let air traffic control be privatized like Trump wants. Its actually a pretty good idea whose origins go back to the Bill Clinton days. Just because the Air traffic control part would be privatized doesn't mean congress couldn't continues to pass laws ensuring fair business practices regarding prices or security.
So long as there are no economic incentives to make cars emissions' cleaner (coming from consumers preferably) and there are only negative economic incentives to meet the emission regulations (lots of design $$ spent up front to make a truly more efficient engine, but then perceived as 'under powered' by the consumers when you go to market) this problem will continue to happen.
honestly, instead of using the heavy hand of government to force motor companies to meet higher and higher emission standards, why not just offer tax incentives/cuts/deductibles to consumers for buying the most 'clean' cars. That way you incentivize consumers to reward companies for buying greener vehicles, and companies feel the need to compete and build the best product.
At first I was all like "Wow, surprisingly facebook is standing up for free speech! They are opposing authoritarian laws in other countries!" And then i was all like "Oh, they'll stop tho if they are threatened legally or the country will cut off access to facebook" and then i was like "Oh wait, they are still restricting free speech, just along their own content guidelines, making them no better than the countries who's laws they disobey"
On the one hand, if they are able to increase production and yields so we are able to feed more people, that would be great.
On the other hand, if they increase production and yields but a majority of it is wasted because the product expires and there isn't enough financing to ship it to starving countries (kinda like the situation the US is already in), that would be bad.
On the other other hand if they change the genetics and the plants end up turning everyone into zombies that would be bad
On the other other other hand if these CRISPR changes are good and we keep them around for 15 years and then realize those genes we edited out would have protected the plants from the latest fungal infection that wipes out half the crops and causes food shortages that would be really really bad!
Well i guess we just have to agree to disagree. My whole argument is Not Paying != Theft. your argument is that not paying someone is always going to be theft. I just disagree, because i believe in freedom
Except i DIDNT TAKE ANYTHING. To 'take' from someone is to leave them with 1 less item of what you took then they had before. When i download music, it is the equivalent of walking down the street, past a street performer. If i don't pay the street performer, even if i enjoyed their music, am i "Taking" or "stealing" from them? That is essentially what you are arguing. File sharing is not theft. File sharing is not piracy. File sharing is not immoral. File sharing is not unethical. File sharing is sharing information. Sharing information is free speech. File sharing should not be illegal.
I am arguing that the music industry 'lied' and used a misleading term 'piracy' to make people think it is unacceptable. When i download a file from someone else, no property is stolen, no person is left with less money than they had before. No person is left with less property than they had before. All that is occurring is the transmission of information, or bits. It is in no way related to theft or piracy. I think 'Internet Piracy' is the misleading term.
It is a crime according to federal laws yes, I am arguing that it should NOT be a crime. also, if the government makes it a crime to say the word 'henceforth' does that actually make it a crime? I would argue no. A crime has a victim, some act of violence or transgression committed on another person (victim) just because 500 stupid people in Washington D.C. pass a law doesn't automatically make it a crime. YMMV I am a Chaotic-Good alignment kinda guy, screw all those Lawfull-Good sheep.
If i am stupid enough to give that information away, of course it isn't a crime for someone to then share my health data with another.
But if someone got hold of that information by 'hacking' into my computer, bypassing my security measures, then that is 'digital tresspassing' they should be arrested for the digital equivalent of cracking the lock on my front door and walking inside to read my tax returns. But the actual act of transmitting that information (or any other information) should not be a crime
the only difference between 'sharing files with friends' and 'unlicensed wholesale distribution' is that technology has made the two pretty indistinguishable, and the lines which once made sense in the past are now extremely blurry.
And while i respect the jury right to nullification, and the jury process, and your rights to a jury, MAN can 12 random people be really really dumb, especially when the topic is really technical and they are being told the wrong facts from a judge and prosecutor
saying that "sharing information over the internet should never be a crime" is not the same as saying "no one should be able to keep secrets" You can encrypt a secret with your friends public key and send it to your friend. The point is the sharing of that information (encrypted or not) should never be a crime
so you are saying that from the very beginning copyright was all about protecting the rich from competition? *gasp* i am shocked!
If you put the word 'illegally' then yeah, i think most would say no. The problem is, i don't think it is EVER a crime to share ANY information. The only crime one can do with information is to bypass someones firewalls and security measures to gain access to information stored on a hard drive that does not belong to you. That to me is 'digital trespassing' but i don't think sharing information over the internet should ever be a crime, in any form whatsoever
basically the old napster, or limewire infrastructure. I haven't checked it out, but as i recall that model had problems with illegitimate files (e.g. you download Avengers, but the movie file is unplayable, or has 'cotton eyed joe' playing constantly over the movie audio) and relied on a central server to co-ordinate sharing of files. We need to develop a way to work around these issues
And use technology to create an amazing decentralized pirate torrenting site that can never be shut down!
Also we need to stop using the word 'pirate' i think we lost the intellectual debate the moment we adopted the term. Its 'file sharing". I bet you if i asked ten random people on the street if they think piracy is wrong, most would say yes. But if i asked 10 random people if 'file sharing' was wrong and should be illegal, they would say 'No! you should be able to share files"
When will Americans come to their senses and realize this failed experiment that is 'copyright' and 'intellectual property' is a disaster? When at first it only regulated the printing of books, which required expensive equipment to produce, it KINDA made sense, mostly only to the big publishers but the regular people didn't care that much so the politicians made copyright a law. Now that it has logically been extended to all kinds of things, code, tv shows, movies, and now jokes, and the length of copyright is 150 years + the life of the author i think its becoming absurdly clear that Copyright law is at its very core a violation of the freedom of speech. It does not encourage innovation. It does not protect the jobs of artists or creators. It does nothing but put more money in the pockets of lawers and giant corporations with the money to buy, and legally maintain and defend, their copyrights.
Flint, MI has terrible drinking water because of the incompetence and corruption of the local politicians who failed to do their duty, it has nothing to do with the EPA.
Also, last year private buisnesses contributed 2.2 BILLION dollars to basic scientific research, its completely false to say that private industry doesn't invest in basic science, technology, or RND.
And according to this article: http://abcnews.go.com/Technolo... the government actually gave better tax breaks for SUV purchases than Hybrid vehicles. When your system of government requires 'the right person' to be in charge in order to work, you have a failed system of government. I would argue that the cost benefits of using less gas is what drove consumers to purchase hybrids, more than any tax breaks. Actually in California, i think the hybrid as a social status symbol (ooh look at me, i'm driving a hybrid because i care about the environment and YOU DONT) did more to drive sales of hybrids than any other vehicle.
Ugh! Everyone buys their shitty chips to put them in consumer electronics and they never release any technical papers or specifications, making it extremely difficult to reverse-engineer the chip and program open-source drivers. Of course the company could release open-source drivers BUT THEY NEVER DO! After tons of complaining from the community they MIGHT release a 'blob' binary that will work with linux but we can't trust it cause that blob could contain malware! Ugh why won't this horrible company contribute to the movement? Don't they realize there is money to be made in supporting the open source community?
Oh wait... I was thinking of broadcom, not qualcom.... my bad