I don't know what's more distressing--the content of this gloom-and-doom post, or the fact that this post was moderated as +5 insightful...
The trend of the Americans to start using their vast police and military internal forces to enforce the whims of corporate copyright laws will multiply the effect of the parallel trend of outsourcing their technological corporate infrastructure to the third world. They are inducing a massive shift of their technological industry to the third world, without any thought given to the long-term consequences of such a strategy.
This is a clumsy and vague statement linking several america-is-a shithole themes in a pointless but seemingly insightful manner. What the hell is America's "Vast police and military internal forces" anyway? What does that have to do with outsourcing tech jobs to India? Of course no American corporation would think of the long-term consequences of outsourcing tech jobs... *cough*
In another generation or two, America will be the new Argentina. Or even worse off considering that they created so much global hatred toward themselves in their schitzo period (1980-2010; when their mounting arrogance and delusional-self congratuation inversely paralleled their financial global decline) that the rest of the world will have no interest in revitalizing them.
I highly doubt this scenario, but that's beside the point. You cite dubious wishful-thinking ("1980-2010; when their mounting arrogance and delusional-self congratuation inversely paralleled their financial global decline") as fact, providing zero information to back it up. "Financial global decline"? The DOW Industrial average has been over 10,000 for over a week, and is up almost 300 points in the past 5 market days. Delusional-self congratulation? In reference to areas that are relevant to this thread, just what are you talking about?
Positive and negative changes happen in the US government all the time. The Communications Decency Act came and went, and I am sure that the DMCA and Patriot Act will eventually follow the same path--although unfortunately on a longer timeframe.
Don't forget that evil corporations are the only lobbyists--the EFF is an excellent example of an organization fighting against the DMCA. There are countless others--and their voices are being heard.
In 2004 the smart young Americans are beginning to question the alternatives to being so closely tied to this declining empire, even if they rarely publicly acknowledge their doubts. Which is probably just as well, given the jingoistic politcal climate there.
Many Americans publicly voice their negative opinions about their government's behavior--and (correctly) see themselves as patriotic by doing so. Public dissent is a part of American politics. Also, considering that you (apparently) don't live in the United States, I question your ability to postulate on what "smart young Americans" are thinking.
I predict that America will do just fine over the next thirty years, with the usual ups and downs, just as it always has.
The Ring was easily the scariest movie I have ever seen. I usually laugh at horror movies, but this one really hit a nerve for some reason. I mean hell, the premise doesn't even sound that scary. Watch a video tape, and a few days later you expire in a rather grotesque fashion. Peh.
It sounded lame to me, but I went to go see it anyway... And then it scared the shit out of me. It ends with a disturbing twist that I think most people will not anticipate--I surely didn't.
In short, it is a brilliantly executed horror flick. I highly recommend it. This movie is bound to influence pop-culture for years to come.
help me out here... If it was totally predictable and standard, how was it awesome?
humor me, I'm interested in your answer, because most everyone I know said that the animation was one of the least inspiring disney films to date. I have yet to see it.
Are you implying that we should revoke this status, and perhaps even cut off all trade with China all together?
This would help nothing. China is far too large to be treated like a small third-world country. Our best bet to turning that country around is by trading with them, not isolating them.
It is not my place to decide if this war was legal or not. I honestly though that WMD's would have been found by now. I'm sure Bush thought the same. Hell, I'm sure Saddam thought the same thing as well.
I do not consider myself an "ends justify the means" person, but it is hard to for me to believe that any reasonable person would look upon the capture of such a brutal dictator as anything but a "good thing".
In the end, it is quite possible that many lives have been saved by this action(the war), although the truth is that we will never know.
No one is proposing the abolition of copyright laws, and that includes the FSF.
The letter clearly stated that RedHat has lobbied to remove software copyrights, which is blatantly false. There are numerous other inaccuracies (perhaps even lies) in the letter.
The letter is most definitely inaccurate, and is quite possibly libel.
Red Hat has aggressively lobbied Congress to eliminate software patents and copyrights.
This statement smells like bullshit. They are intentionally muddling the difference between copyrights and patents; trying to make it look like RedHat is the one taking the indefensible position.
No one who has any relevance to this case opposes software copyrights. On the other hand, software patents are an entirely different issue and debate. Muddling the two together as "intellectual property" is misleading to the point of libel.
I shouldn't get worked up about this stuff, but for some reason it just really pisses me off.
Yeah that is true for the most part. But it's not just the transformer, the capacitors also influence the power factor.
*remembers back to highschool physics*
In alternating current, you have both the voltage AND the current oscillating. In the most ideal situation, the voltage and current are in sync, giving you a power factor of 1. However, when you introduce something like a transformer or a capacitor into the circuit(to, for example, increase the voltage), the current and voltage get out of sync. You can correct for this by using the correct capacitor.
A power factor of 0.5 implies that they are not correcting the phase-shift of the voltage¤t after the transformer. This is probably because (from what I understand) it would be prohibitively expensive(we are talking about a very large capacitor). However, the power company uses them routinely to improve their power factors, which saves them thousands of dollars in energy costs. Some power companies will even print the power factor on the bill. (It changes depending on various conditions such as temperature. As it gets hotter, the power lines expand, thus changing the power factor. Power companies compensate for this by making slight adjustments to the power frequency, but I digress)
So you end up loosing around %30 of your power to heat on your UPS. With UPS's (and inverters) so cheap these days, just remember that you get what you pay for. If you want a UPS with a better power factor (and, thus, longer battery time and increased ability to handle large loads), you'll have to shell out that extra money for the components to do that.
Honestly, it's not that big of a deal that it is so inefficient, because it is going to be used so infrequently anyway. If you used that inverter all the time, then you might have a problem.:)
Unfortunately he didn't talk much about Volt-Amps Vs. Watts, which is what you asked... I'm sure if you google around enough you'll find out more.
Most devices take more power to start them up than it takes to run them. The VA rating simply reflects this.
A while back I had the same questions as you and I googled around and found a really good page that explained it all. Unfortunately, it seems to escape me at the moment.
This article seems to come pretty close, although it beats around the bush a bit.
When a UPS refers to a "VoltAmp", they are referring to it's surge-load. Bizarre and confusing, because a watt is defined as a volt amp. They really should be the same thing.
But yeah, the VoltAmps are the surge-load, sustainable only for a short period of time(ie: time enough to spin up motors, charge up the electron guns, etc). Whenever they say "watts", they are talking about the sustained-load. I have two UPSs, and both list the load capacity in VoltAmps and Watts--and the numbers are different.
As a general rule of thumb, the sustainable-load is 80% of the surge-load.
BTW: Random note, a computer almost never draws the full watts listed on the power supply.
The solution to this is rather simple -- just post a disclaimer that all submitted patches become your property. Of course, this doesn't stop someone from going out and starting their own branch that you don't own, but unless you are a bastard maintainer that won't be a problem.
Just do some simple math and you can avoid overloading a circuit.
1) Determine the rating of the circuit -- I imagine each dorm room will have one circuit. (Maybe two) 2) Determine which outlets go to which circuits. If outlets are close together, then they are probably on the same circuit. 3) Calculate the amps of everything you are plugging into the circuit. 4) Add them all up. 5) If they are close to or over the amp rating for the circuit, then you have a problem, and you will have to unplug stuff.
Important points to remember:
* Don't forget to check the rating on any power strips that you use! Most are rated at 15 amps, which is probably the same as the circuit you are plugging into. * Circuit breakers can momentarily handle more than their rated amps. ie: it might be able to handle 17 amps for, say, 30 seconds before tripping. The higher the amps, the faster the trip. A direct short will (er, should) instantly trip the breaker. * Not everything has the amps listed -- some devices only list the watts. You can calculate the amps by dividing the watts by the voltage. ie: your 400 watt computer running on 120 volts will have a max amps of 3.33. * If you are in a situation where you have two circuits near your computer, and you overload one, keep this in mind: It is generally a Bad Idea to plug some peripherals into one outlet and others into another. Subtle differences in voltage and phase can lead to a net difference in voltage between your equipment and lead to permanent damage. * This may be unfounded (someone correct me if I am wrong), but I always think that it is more dangerous to overload a power-strip than an outlet--meaning that I trust the circuit breaker in the closet more so than I trust the power strip.
I hope this helps. If you read this and go kill yourself, it's your own damn fault. Use at your own risk. Use common sense, and remember that this IS slashdot.
Unicode doesn't imply wide characters. UTF-8 is a superset of ASCII, meaning that all current domain names are valid UTF-8. Gnome uses this encoding heavily. So does MacOS X.
UTF-8 "characters" are not necessarily one byte long. Obviously, all of the ascii characters are one byte. To get to the other character sets, you use a non-ascii character byte (ie: >127) followed by another byte. You can also have three byte characters, or larger in some cases. You can still enforce limitations regarding the absence of whitespace and character "upper/lowercase" issues.
And hell, if we are going to go ahead and switch over to UTF-8, we might as well extend the size of a hostname so that UTF-8 names can be useful in any language.
This all means that switching to "internationalized DNS" would be much easier than you might otherwise think. Still a pain in the ass, but at least not impossible.
Of course, fat chance of any of this happening. Your point is a good one--I may be for this now, but the first time I have to try to type in an internationalized hostname, I'll be pissed.
Perhaps my numbers were a bit slow. I donno. I was mostly talking about having access to the internet without a parent standing behind them watching their every move.
hopefully this will all be several years down the road for me.:)
I've given this issue a lot of thought, and this is my plan: Let then onto the internet whenever they can articulate a desire for it in a convincing manner(Probably around 7 or 8). At that point, I will inform them of the following: 1) his/her access to the internet is limited to specific times during the day. These time will be enforced at the router. 2) his/her access will be limited to the WWW via a proxy. All other ports will be blocked. 3) his/her access to the internet will be filtered. 4) His/her access will be logged, and I will personally review the logs every day. 5) Internet access is a privilege. If he/she is grounded, then he/she will be disconnected from the internet at the router.
This may sound really harsh, but keep in mind that they are just 7 or 8 years old. As the get older, these restrictions will be relaxed. ie: At some point, I would stop filtering, but keep logging (and they would know when this would happen). Also, at some point after this I would stop logging, reserving the right to resume logging if I had probable cause to do so. Eventually the time restriction would also removed.
As with asking for the internet, access to stuff other than the WWW via a proxy will be granted whenever he/she can articulate his/her desire to use other services (and he/she will have to explicitly ask for which service they want to use)
By the age of 16, assuming they aren't grounded, they will pretty much have full access (Well, not quite full access.:P) to the local network and the internet, un-logged. If my child ever gives me a reason to suspect their on-line conduct as something that is either 1) illegal, or 2) harmful to themselves or others, I will log the connection. My child should also be confident that I will not log them unless they give me a reason (via their conduct) to do so.
I think that this policy is quite reasonable, as long as you reserve the right to pull the plug at any time.
I don't like the idea of lying to my children, ie: saying that I won't log, and then start logging away. I don't think that it makes you a very good role model if you do this. If you set up a system of rules as a parent, then you must abide by them as much as your children should. Anything else reeks of hypocrisy. Not that that is what you are proposing, but I just wanted to say that because it has been stated elsewhere.
I'd appreciate it if you would keep your insults directed at the network itself rather that those who watch it.
Not everyone who watches Fox News is a conservative zealot. And not every conservative zealot watches Fox News.
I'm not defending Fox News in this case, as it seems like a simple case of "Fair Use" (parody), which is an explicitly protected form of free speech. It just drives me crazy when people are pigeonholed as being a moron based on one simple aspect of personal preference.
If these boxes only recorded speed, then you might have a case.
From what I understand, these boxes store much more than just speed information--including stuff like the steering direction, among other things.
Given a careful assessment of the crash site, it should be pretty obvious from the black box readouts what the driver was trying to do. There is a hellova' lot more to examine than just relative car speed when determining fault.
However, there is no excuse for going in excess of 30 miles over the stated speed limit.
As I have said before, this is NOT a violation of the 5th amendment, which only applies to sworn testimony. (ie: when you are legally compelled to answer a question) The only possible constitutional violation would be of the 4th amendment--unlawful search and seizure. ie: They would need a court order to view the black box. Otherwise it is off-limits to the authorities unless you explicitly give them permission.
If there is probable cause to think that you were negligent getting a court order won't be a problem.
Using the black box as evidence is no more a violation of the 5th amendment than using the skid marks. The black box is a physical piece of evidence. The fifth amendment only applies to sworn testimony.
If you don't like it, fine, I'm sure you'll find a way to render it useless. Just remember that while this box can be used to convict you, it could also exonerate you.
As for the devices accuracy, that is something that you are completely open to contest(and rightfully so).
I was thinking the same thing.:) However, it would probably be a bad idea to just dump it into the ocean, even if it is on a subduction zone...
There are subjection zones on land right? Burial a few miles away from the fault on the plate that is going under... that way it won't even be a problem millions of years from now.
From what I understand, those devices were quite different, and much more poorly constructed. Those were solid-state thermoelectric nuclear generators--which is nothing new. The core was small enough that you could pick it up with your bare hands(not recommended).
This device looks quite a bit larger, much more difficult plunder. It is not a thermoelectric generator, as it has a turbine. Even if someone had unhindered access to this reactor, (s)he would have a hell of a time getting to the fuel.
There are only two similarities that I can see: 1) The are both "nuclear", and 2) they are both relatively maintence-free(at least as far as the reactor is concerned).
Even today, thermoelectric nuclear generators have many applications, such as the power source for deep-space probes. However, they are not efficient enough to be used for powering a small town.
I would rather have a small amount of contained radioactive waste than a huge amount of toxic waste pumped into our air and water.
Think about it.
With the contained waste (such as form nuclear reactors), you can take measures to prevent its introduction into our environment for an indefinite amount of time(Thousands of years or more).
With unconfined waste (such as from fossil fuels), you immediately (and irrevocably) deteriorate the environment which you and your children will live in.
Don't forget that waste from fossil fuels can also be carcinogenic. You are exposed to it, and there is nothing you can do about it.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know what's more distressing--the content of this gloom-and-doom post, or the fact that this post was moderated as +5 insightful...
The trend of the Americans to start using their vast police and military internal forces to enforce the whims of corporate copyright laws will multiply the effect of the parallel trend of outsourcing their technological corporate infrastructure to the third world. They are inducing a massive shift of their technological industry to the third world, without any thought given to the long-term consequences of such a strategy.
This is a clumsy and vague statement linking several america-is-a shithole themes in a pointless but seemingly insightful manner. What the hell is America's "Vast police and military internal forces" anyway? What does that have to do with outsourcing tech jobs to India? Of course no American corporation would think of the long-term consequences of outsourcing tech jobs... *cough*
In another generation or two, America will be the new Argentina. Or even worse off considering that they created so much global hatred toward themselves in their schitzo period (1980-2010; when their mounting arrogance and delusional-self congratuation inversely paralleled their financial global decline) that the rest of the world will have no interest in revitalizing them.
I highly doubt this scenario, but that's beside the point. You cite dubious wishful-thinking ("1980-2010; when their mounting arrogance and delusional-self congratuation inversely paralleled their financial global decline") as fact, providing zero information to back it up. "Financial global decline"? The DOW Industrial average has been over 10,000 for over a week, and is up almost 300 points in the past 5 market days. Delusional-self congratulation? In reference to areas that are relevant to this thread, just what are you talking about?
Positive and negative changes happen in the US government all the time. The Communications Decency Act came and went, and I am sure that the DMCA and Patriot Act will eventually follow the same path--although unfortunately on a longer timeframe.
Don't forget that evil corporations are the only lobbyists--the EFF is an excellent example of an organization fighting against the DMCA. There are countless others--and their voices are being heard.
In 2004 the smart young Americans are beginning to question the alternatives to being so closely tied to this declining empire, even if they rarely publicly acknowledge their doubts. Which is probably just as well, given the jingoistic politcal climate there.
Many Americans publicly voice their negative opinions about their government's behavior--and (correctly) see themselves as patriotic by doing so. Public dissent is a part of American politics. Also, considering that you (apparently) don't live in the United States, I question your ability to postulate on what "smart young Americans" are thinking.
I predict that America will do just fine over the next thirty years, with the usual ups and downs, just as it always has.
Yeah, I'm going crazy... For some reason I was thinking "Treasure Planet"...
lol, sorry, my bad... For some reason I was thinking about Treasure Planet when I wrote that.
*sigh* I need to have my head screwed on tighter... Or perhaps escape this sea of code that I work in...
Naa...
The Ring was easily the scariest movie I have ever seen. I usually laugh at horror movies, but this one really hit a nerve for some reason. I mean hell, the premise doesn't even sound that scary. Watch a video tape, and a few days later you expire in a rather grotesque fashion. Peh.
It sounded lame to me, but I went to go see it anyway... And then it scared the shit out of me. It ends with a disturbing twist that I think most people will not anticipate--I surely didn't.
In short, it is a brilliantly executed horror flick. I highly recommend it. This movie is bound to influence pop-culture for years to come.
help me out here... If it was totally predictable and standard, how was it awesome?
humor me, I'm interested in your answer, because most everyone I know said that the animation was one of the least inspiring disney films to date. I have yet to see it.
Are you implying that we should revoke this status, and perhaps even cut off all trade with China all together?
This would help nothing. China is far too large to be treated like a small third-world country. Our best bet to turning that country around is by trading with them, not isolating them.
It is not my place to decide if this war was legal or not. I honestly though that WMD's would have been found by now. I'm sure Bush thought the same. Hell, I'm sure Saddam thought the same thing as well.
I do not consider myself an "ends justify the means" person, but it is hard to for me to believe that any reasonable person would look upon the capture of such a brutal dictator as anything but a "good thing".
In the end, it is quite possible that many lives have been saved by this action(the war), although the truth is that we will never know.
It's true the FSF doesn't like copyright...
No one is proposing the abolition of copyright laws, and that includes the FSF.
The letter clearly stated that RedHat has lobbied to remove software copyrights, which is blatantly false. There are numerous other inaccuracies (perhaps even lies) in the letter.
The letter is most definitely inaccurate, and is quite possibly libel.
From the letter:
Red Hat has aggressively lobbied Congress to eliminate software patents and copyrights.
This statement smells like bullshit. They are intentionally muddling the difference between copyrights and patents; trying to make it look like RedHat is the one taking the indefensible position.
No one who has any relevance to this case opposes software copyrights. On the other hand, software patents are an entirely different issue and debate. Muddling the two together as "intellectual property" is misleading to the point of libel.
I shouldn't get worked up about this stuff, but for some reason it just really pisses me off.
Pathetic.
Yeah that is true for the most part. But it's not just the transformer, the capacitors also influence the power factor.
:)
*remembers back to highschool physics*
In alternating current, you have both the voltage AND the current oscillating. In the most ideal situation, the voltage and current are in sync, giving you a power factor of 1. However, when you introduce something like a transformer or a capacitor into the circuit(to, for example, increase the voltage), the current and voltage get out of sync. You can correct for this by using the correct capacitor.
A power factor of 0.5 implies that they are not correcting the phase-shift of the voltage¤t after the transformer. This is probably because (from what I understand) it would be prohibitively expensive(we are talking about a very large capacitor). However, the power company uses them routinely to improve their power factors, which saves them thousands of dollars in energy costs. Some power companies will even print the power factor on the bill. (It changes depending on various conditions such as temperature. As it gets hotter, the power lines expand, thus changing the power factor. Power companies compensate for this by making slight adjustments to the power frequency, but I digress)
So you end up loosing around %30 of your power to heat on your UPS. With UPS's (and inverters) so cheap these days, just remember that you get what you pay for. If you want a UPS with a better power factor (and, thus, longer battery time and increased ability to handle large loads), you'll have to shell out that extra money for the components to do that.
Honestly, it's not that big of a deal that it is so inefficient, because it is going to be used so infrequently anyway. If you used that inverter all the time, then you might have a problem.
Unfortunately he didn't talk much about Volt-Amps Vs. Watts, which is what you asked... I'm sure if you google around enough you'll find out more.
Naa... Good try though. ;)
Most devices take more power to start them up than it takes to run them. The VA rating simply reflects this.
A while back I had the same questions as you and I googled around and found a really good page that explained it all. Unfortunately, it seems to escape me at the moment.
This article seems to come pretty close, although it beats around the bush a bit.
When a UPS refers to a "VoltAmp", they are referring to it's surge-load. Bizarre and confusing, because a watt is defined as a volt amp. They really should be the same thing.
But yeah, the VoltAmps are the surge-load, sustainable only for a short period of time(ie: time enough to spin up motors, charge up the electron guns, etc). Whenever they say "watts", they are talking about the sustained-load. I have two UPSs, and both list the load capacity in VoltAmps and Watts--and the numbers are different.
As a general rule of thumb, the sustainable-load is 80% of the surge-load.
BTW: Random note, a computer almost never draws the full watts listed on the power supply.
The solution to this is rather simple -- just post a disclaimer that all submitted patches become your property. Of course, this doesn't stop someone from going out and starting their own branch that you don't own, but unless you are a bastard maintainer that won't be a problem.
Just do some simple math and you can avoid overloading a circuit.
1) Determine the rating of the circuit -- I imagine each dorm room will have one circuit. (Maybe two)
2) Determine which outlets go to which circuits. If outlets are close together, then they are probably on the same circuit.
3) Calculate the amps of everything you are plugging into the circuit.
4) Add them all up.
5) If they are close to or over the amp rating for the circuit, then you have a problem, and you will have to unplug stuff.
Important points to remember:
* Don't forget to check the rating on any power strips that you use! Most are rated at 15 amps, which is probably the same as the circuit you are plugging into.
* Circuit breakers can momentarily handle more than their rated amps. ie: it might be able to handle 17 amps for, say, 30 seconds before tripping. The higher the amps, the faster the trip. A direct short will (er, should) instantly trip the breaker.
* Not everything has the amps listed -- some devices only list the watts. You can calculate the amps by dividing the watts by the voltage. ie: your 400 watt computer running on 120 volts will have a max amps of 3.33.
* If you are in a situation where you have two circuits near your computer, and you overload one, keep this in mind: It is generally a Bad Idea to plug some peripherals into one outlet and others into another. Subtle differences in voltage and phase can lead to a net difference in voltage between your equipment and lead to permanent damage.
* This may be unfounded (someone correct me if I am wrong), but I always think that it is more dangerous to overload a power-strip than an outlet--meaning that I trust the circuit breaker in the closet more so than I trust the power strip.
I hope this helps. If you read this and go kill yourself, it's your own damn fault. Use at your own risk. Use common sense, and remember that this IS slashdot.
Minor point I figured I would make here...
Unicode doesn't imply wide characters. UTF-8 is a superset of ASCII, meaning that all current domain names are valid UTF-8. Gnome uses this encoding heavily. So does MacOS X.
UTF-8 "characters" are not necessarily one byte long. Obviously, all of the ascii characters are one byte. To get to the other character sets, you use a non-ascii character byte (ie: >127) followed by another byte. You can also have three byte characters, or larger in some cases. You can still enforce limitations regarding the absence of whitespace and character "upper/lowercase" issues.
And hell, if we are going to go ahead and switch over to UTF-8, we might as well extend the size of a hostname so that UTF-8 names can be useful in any language.
This all means that switching to "internationalized DNS" would be much easier than you might otherwise think. Still a pain in the ass, but at least not impossible.
Of course, fat chance of any of this happening. Your point is a good one--I may be for this now, but the first time I have to try to type in an internationalized hostname, I'll be pissed.
Perhaps my numbers were a bit slow. I donno. I was mostly talking about having access to the internet without a parent standing behind them watching their every move.
:)
hopefully this will all be several years down the road for me.
Guh. That's just "newspeaknglish".
Crimethinker!!!
The Newspeak Dictionary
Ouch. That's kinda harsh.
:P) to the local network and the internet, un-logged. If my child ever gives me a reason to suspect their on-line conduct as something that is either 1) illegal, or 2) harmful to themselves or others, I will log the connection. My child should also be confident that I will not log them unless they give me a reason (via their conduct) to do so.
I've given this issue a lot of thought, and this is my plan: Let then onto the internet whenever they can articulate a desire for it in a convincing manner(Probably around 7 or 8). At that point, I will inform them of the following:
1) his/her access to the internet is limited to specific times during the day. These time will be enforced at the router.
2) his/her access will be limited to the WWW via a proxy. All other ports will be blocked.
3) his/her access to the internet will be filtered.
4) His/her access will be logged, and I will personally review the logs every day.
5) Internet access is a privilege. If he/she is grounded, then he/she will be disconnected from the internet at the router.
This may sound really harsh, but keep in mind that they are just 7 or 8 years old. As the get older, these restrictions will be relaxed. ie: At some point, I would stop filtering, but keep logging (and they would know when this would happen). Also, at some point after this I would stop logging, reserving the right to resume logging if I had probable cause to do so. Eventually the time restriction would also removed.
As with asking for the internet, access to stuff other than the WWW via a proxy will be granted whenever he/she can articulate his/her desire to use other services (and he/she will have to explicitly ask for which service they want to use)
By the age of 16, assuming they aren't grounded, they will pretty much have full access (Well, not quite full access.
I think that this policy is quite reasonable, as long as you reserve the right to pull the plug at any time.
I don't like the idea of lying to my children, ie: saying that I won't log, and then start logging away. I don't think that it makes you a very good role model if you do this. If you set up a system of rules as a parent, then you must abide by them as much as your children should. Anything else reeks of hypocrisy. Not that that is what you are proposing, but I just wanted to say that because it has been stated elsewhere.
I appreciate the link. I find those numbers to be very disappointing--for all Americans. It is a very, very sad state of affairs.
I'd appreciate it if you would keep your insults directed at the network itself rather that those who watch it.
Not everyone who watches Fox News is a conservative zealot. And not every conservative zealot watches Fox News.
I'm not defending Fox News in this case, as it seems like a simple case of "Fair Use" (parody), which is an explicitly protected form of free speech. It just drives me crazy when people are pigeonholed as being a moron based on one simple aspect of personal preference.
If these boxes only recorded speed, then you might have a case.
From what I understand, these boxes store much more than just speed information--including stuff like the steering direction, among other things.
Given a careful assessment of the crash site, it should be pretty obvious from the black box readouts what the driver was trying to do. There is a hellova' lot more to examine than just relative car speed when determining fault.
However, there is no excuse for going in excess of 30 miles over the stated speed limit.
As I have said before, this is NOT a violation of the 5th amendment, which only applies to sworn testimony. (ie: when you are legally compelled to answer a question) The only possible constitutional violation would be of the 4th amendment--unlawful search and seizure. ie: They would need a court order to view the black box. Otherwise it is off-limits to the authorities unless you explicitly give them permission.
If there is probable cause to think that you were negligent getting a court order won't be a problem.
You have misinterpreted the 5th amendment.
Using the black box as evidence is no more a violation of the 5th amendment than using the skid marks. The black box is a physical piece of evidence. The fifth amendment only applies to sworn testimony.
If you don't like it, fine, I'm sure you'll find a way to render it useless. Just remember that while this box can be used to convict you, it could also exonerate you.
As for the devices accuracy, that is something that you are completely open to contest(and rightfully so).
I was thinking the same thing. :) However, it would probably be a bad idea to just dump it into the ocean, even if it is on a subduction zone...
There are subjection zones on land right? Burial a few miles away from the fault on the plate that is going under... that way it won't even be a problem millions of years from now.
Or so the idea goes...
From what I understand, those devices were quite different, and much more poorly constructed. Those were solid-state thermoelectric nuclear generators--which is nothing new. The core was small enough that you could pick it up with your bare hands(not recommended).
This device looks quite a bit larger, much more difficult plunder. It is not a thermoelectric generator, as it has a turbine. Even if someone had unhindered access to this reactor, (s)he would have a hell of a time getting to the fuel.
There are only two similarities that I can see: 1) The are both "nuclear", and 2) they are both relatively maintence-free(at least as far as the reactor is concerned).
Even today, thermoelectric nuclear generators have many applications, such as the power source for deep-space probes. However, they are not efficient enough to be used for powering a small town.
I would rather have a small amount of contained radioactive waste than a huge amount of toxic waste pumped into our air and water.
Think about it.
With the contained waste (such as form nuclear reactors), you can take measures to prevent its introduction into our environment for an indefinite amount of time(Thousands of years or more).
With unconfined waste (such as from fossil fuels), you immediately (and irrevocably) deteriorate the environment which you and your children will live in.
Don't forget that waste from fossil fuels can also be carcinogenic. You are exposed to it, and there is nothing you can do about it.