GPP said "almost entirely a scam". This is not the same as "entirely a scam". Note the adverb. This also means exceptions don't disprove his statement. So, except for treating severe depression, what have the Romans, uh, the psychiatrists done for us?
It's as unpopular a view to state in front of Americans and it is a popular one to state in front of non-gun-owning countries. The usual comeback is what would happen if someone breaks into my house with a weapon, don't I wish I had a gun then? Yes, but I wish harder that the other guy never was able to get hold of a gun in the first place, and that's made much easier by gun control for private hands.
Having seen the prevalence of criminals getting guns, even in heavily regulated Canada, and the simplicity of making a one-shot gun, I personally don't find this reassuring at all.
In my entire life, I have never discharged a weapon. I have never held a weapon. I have never seen a real, live weapon except in an airport where the police are routinely armed. I have never seen a live weapon discharged in my entire life. I have lived and worked in some of the most horrible, manky, poor, deprived, crime-ridden areas of my country. I have had people try to walk into my house past me, and have had physical threats against my person.
I have seen guns. Knowing a little about them, they look powerful, and I can see why some people would find them scary. I've heard people say similar things about cars (yes, more than one). While my grandfather owned a gun (which farmer in the thirties didn't?), I've not owned a gun, nor do I expect I will. I don't feel a particular need for it, and while I acknowledge the potential benefit of it, the LAST thing I would want is a gun in my currently untrained hands. That said, I'm not scared of law-abiding people having them, provided they are properly trained.
I can't emphasise it enough, if you point a gun in my direction, accidentally or not, I will do anything up to and including killing you to stop that situation occurring or continuing. But owning a gun expressly for that purpose will only cause the same reaction from the other party.
I honestly can't think of a single situation where I could be in that position where I wouldn't already assume the other person is completely prepared to kill me. Except for interactions like that with the authorities (where I generally expect I'd be treating them with the utmost respect), I'd prefer to be on more even footing.
Sure, what he did was unethical. But, had he the mandate of the company he was doing this with, it would simply be called subcontracting to an independent organization, with the employee being the coordinator.
Now, I don't know if RSA has a locale element to it's codes, but the last time I saw one of these (which I admit was years ago) you had a 6 second window to use the code. I don't think that could have realistically changed - just how fast can you enter that code? So the simple solution would be for him to have the Chinese guy working with it and still keep possession is to show it via a webcam. This will probably cut the window down to about 4 seconds or more - still a reasonable time frame if you're quick.
Resources are finite, and the police are constantly busy. They can't be arsed to take every little issue seriously. Some people wonder why the police will take a long time to show up at the scene of an accident when there is no injury involved, but will show up quickly if there is fighting or if somebody is injured. If it is an emergency, they'll drop something else they are doing (which is every bit as deserving of their attention) to handle the emergency instead.
(Emphasis mine.)
No, they are not. That's why, when they have to choose one over the other, they go to the more serious situation. Sucks that they have to choose, but they usually choose based on a reasonable basis.
I got a Windows 8 computer for my kid. While it's simple enough to figure out, it's a broken system on a non-touchscreen system.
Your "start menu" can span more than one screen. I imagine that if you had a touchscreen, a simple swipe would get you to the parts you cant see. With a mouse, you'll have to carry that thing once or twice to get from one side to the other if you've got it configured for more than one screen (which this one did out of the box). With a trackpad, multiple swipes will be required. Yay?
Why on earth would you count it as a benefit that the best way to use a GUI is to use the keyboard? Sure, I like the keyboard options, too, but the idea of a (good) graphical user interface where even basic actions are orders of magnitude easier with the keyboard is absurd. This is just one indication of how broken it is.
I will grant this could be a good UI for a touchscreen system, but not a non-touchscreen system. We have a well-developed GUI for a non-touchscreen system, widely adopted by corporate offices, yet Microsoft insists that we shouldn't have access anymore. I hope they pay for their insistence that we change.
Sorry, but there are mounds of evidence as to why the death penalty is not a deterrent (ie.: crimes of passion, psychological studies that show humans are *really* bad at thinking ahead and considering consequences ) and as long as there a still a chance of wrongful conviction, I won't stand for mandated state murder. Not to mention killing is morally wrong no matter what the context or circumstances.
I will happily see my tax dollars spent (and even increased) to incarcerate truly haneous offenders as long as is necessary.
I agree with your comment except for the highlighted part. How is it wrong to kill someone to stop them from killing someone else when no other options exist? This is not a hypothetical question, the circumstance arises regularly. Are you saying a SWAT team member is engaging in a wrong act because they kill a criminal before he shoots someone else? How many people does this criminal need to be threatening before you would rather the criminal be shot first?
While it may not be something you're willing to do, I suspect that even in your world view there are circumstances where it is preferable, even if it's not desired.
the death penalty is not a deterrent
Not so much a deterrent, as a preventative. Most crimes are committed by repeat offenders. It would have the effect of removing that segment of the population who are genetically pre-disposed to have impulse control problems from the gene pool, and prevent them from committing more crimes. Unfortunately it also removes other people who have just had an unbearably bad day, or who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
How would these goals not be served by having them in prison until the day they die? With the added benefit that if we in fact find out the verdict was wrong we can release them.
Whether the immunisation works or not is certainly an issue but for the sake of good practice I would say the burden of proof should be with the nurses to prove that the immunisation *doesn't* work rather than demand proof that is does work.
I have a series of orange hats that is guaranteed to stop you from getting the flu, or robbed. I insist that you wear it, at least until you've proven otherwise.
Alternatively, I insist that you worship the god of my choice, until such time as you prove he/she/it doesn't exist.
I'll assume you're American, and even if you aren't, the people in the article are American. So, isn't "I don't wanna" a basic precept of the American culture? Pay taxes to England. "I don't wanna." Give up your guns. "I don't wanna."
Here's my take on the subject. First, while you won't get the flu from a protein-segment immunization, you can still have a reaction to it and suffer from the classic flu symptoms for some period of time (fever, tired, etc.). Second, the whole premise of the flu vaccine is making a(n educated) guess about which flu is most likely to spread, and make a vaccine that should counteract it. So, how often are they correct? If they're not often correct, they are essentially being fired for refusing to be subjected to a medical procedure of possibly no value. How does that not violate their basic freedoms?
You haven't been to a strip club in a while. Imagine tossing dollar coins at the girls?
This sounds like a new sport until the bouncer breaks my throwing arm.
Seriously though, dollar bills are commonly used for tips, vending machines, etc. and keeping 5 in my pocket would be far less convenient than 5 $1 bills.
While all those excuses have a certain amount of validity, this doesn't stop millions of people from coping just fine without $1 bills.
There are other options. Examine countries with similar foreign policies and dissimilar airport security policies, and see which has a greater rate of captured terrorists, and which has more terrorist attempts. Of course, there just aren't a lot of countries with similar policies to the US, but there are a few countries with a similar policy by the terrorists, a prime one being Israel. So, what does Israel do to get their rates with dealing with terrorism, and why doesn't the US follow that 40-year practice instead of constantly reacting to a single threat that evaded their system?
An example to make my point clear. Suppose you're an Islamic fundamentalist ranting about US cultural imperialism. Using the tools you gradually change what you write, under a sequence of aliases, until soon you have the online opinions of a Neocon!
While I'm sure that the topic and position on that topic are part of the algorithm, I suspect it's a little more involved in that. Otherwise, there's going to be this one guy who just happens to be an Islamic fundamentalist, dislikes the Great Satan, and is quite a prolific writer. Likewise, I'm sure we could find a different tone of writing between the various Neocons.
While I'm not interested in being a test pilot, if it has been tested and found to be at least as safe as a car, why not? I try not to let irrational fear rule my life, while you apparently do.
But this company is definitely not a patent troll, and it looks like they make great products: http://www.3dsystems.com/personal-3d-printers
I think that they should try and settle with the startup and allow them to pay them a license fee for each printer sold. $50/printer and everyone is happy. They get to use the patent and everyone goes home happy. The guy heading the startup should just call the big company and see what they can work out.
Anything can be negotiated.
This is definitely not legal advice, it could make things way worse, and I am not a lawyer.
I suspect that if this was true, 3D Systems would have contacted them when they became aware of the potential patent violation, rather than wait until they were backed in a corner. Something tells me they wanted more of that cash than just a simple licensing agreement (or even worse, a workaround).
I'm not sure how this paper relates, would you mind explaining?
The first couple sentences in the results section should indicate what he's talking about (in that he disagrees with the value his parent post puts in ice cores). I haven't read enough to know whether I agree or not.
Why on earth would I believe the genetics questions you brought up had anything to do with your parent post when he doesn't mention that once? He mentions other people using it for DNA screening (valid, but unlikely), and selling data (also valid, not sure how likely), but not as a way of ending the racist gene. Also, given the collision rate of current DNA tests, almost anything is better than violating a bunch of people's privacy, stigmatizing some individuals, and having data that is probably going to be used incorrectly. Perhaps you don't value privacy that much, but I and a number of other people do.
First, they are looking at a relatively small population, so the odds of two unrelated matches is lower than if you were scanning a database of millions of profiles.
From what I've read, the reasoning for the small area is that the lighter was sold nearby. While that increases the probability the person lived there, it's no guarantee. So, the question is more, "what are the odds of someone visiting having a duplicate match", rather than "what are the odds of two locals having a duplicate match".
The whole premise of what I'm reading in your post is that rape and murder have more than a genetic predisposition, but that it is as guaranteed as eye color. I've heard no indications that this is the case, so I don't think them wearing protection is going to be the ultimate gift to mankind that you suppose it is. Moreover, I'm sure we can find a number of cases where the rapist or murderer was able to have multiple sexual encounters that were consensual and resulted in children, so this "evil gene" could still be passed on even if he was "practicing safe rape". That kind of negates the whole point of your argument.
You're argument of "There's got to be a better way to solve these rapes than asking all of us to give up private information at the threat of arrest." is also a Red Herring. No one in the article was threatened with prison time for not volunteering their DNA.
No, of course not, but you're completely ignoring peer pressure, which does have a lot of research to back up its existence and power, in inluincing people to "volunteer". So, would you want to be the one guy on your block that didn't submit a sample? Do you imagine it would make you a little uncomfortable? Then there's the whole "this worked so well, if only we could require people to do this every time" scenario, which isn't farfetched, and then we will have people being imprisoned for refusing to "voluntarily" give a sample.
Personally, I liked the one from Speed. You know, the one that looked something like this. I hope the TSA are keeping their eyes out for that one, too.
I RTFA this morning. This isn't Joe Blow getting a few movies from the pirate bay, this is a counterfeiter. Copyright infringement isn't theft, but I'd say this is, as the criminal is getting the money that should have gone to the movies' producers..
I see. Considering the money trail alone, tell me something. How is 10,500 pirated CDs in the possession of one man any different than 10,500 people in possession of one pirated CD? In either case, the producer is still left sans payment.
Sorry, but false logic is false.
In one, RIAA would like to fine one guy for what those other 10,499 did, too. In the other, not only is one guy breaking the law 10,500 times, those he would have sold to would have been breaking the law, as well, unwittingly or not. That's the difference.
Slashdot Mirror
GPP said "almost entirely a scam". This is not the same as "entirely a scam". Note the adverb. This also means exceptions don't disprove his statement. So, except for treating severe depression, what have the Romans, uh, the psychiatrists done for us?
It's as unpopular a view to state in front of Americans and it is a popular one to state in front of non-gun-owning countries. The usual comeback is what would happen if someone breaks into my house with a weapon, don't I wish I had a gun then? Yes, but I wish harder that the other guy never was able to get hold of a gun in the first place, and that's made much easier by gun control for private hands.
Having seen the prevalence of criminals getting guns, even in heavily regulated Canada, and the simplicity of making a one-shot gun, I personally don't find this reassuring at all.
In my entire life, I have never discharged a weapon. I have never held a weapon. I have never seen a real, live weapon except in an airport where the police are routinely armed. I have never seen a live weapon discharged in my entire life. I have lived and worked in some of the most horrible, manky, poor, deprived, crime-ridden areas of my country. I have had people try to walk into my house past me, and have had physical threats against my person.
I have seen guns. Knowing a little about them, they look powerful, and I can see why some people would find them scary. I've heard people say similar things about cars (yes, more than one). While my grandfather owned a gun (which farmer in the thirties didn't?), I've not owned a gun, nor do I expect I will. I don't feel a particular need for it, and while I acknowledge the potential benefit of it, the LAST thing I would want is a gun in my currently untrained hands. That said, I'm not scared of law-abiding people having them, provided they are properly trained.
I can't emphasise it enough, if you point a gun in my direction, accidentally or not, I will do anything up to and including killing you to stop that situation occurring or continuing. But owning a gun expressly for that purpose will only cause the same reaction from the other party.
I honestly can't think of a single situation where I could be in that position where I wouldn't already assume the other person is completely prepared to kill me. Except for interactions like that with the authorities (where I generally expect I'd be treating them with the utmost respect), I'd prefer to be on more even footing.
Sure, what he did was unethical. But, had he the mandate of the company he was doing this with, it would simply be called subcontracting to an independent organization, with the employee being the coordinator.
Now, I don't know if RSA has a locale element to it's codes, but the last time I saw one of these (which I admit was years ago) you had a 6 second window to use the code. I don't think that could have realistically changed - just how fast can you enter that code? So the simple solution would be for him to have the Chinese guy working with it and still keep possession is to show it via a webcam. This will probably cut the window down to about 4 seconds or more - still a reasonable time frame if you're quick.
Resources are finite, and the police are constantly busy. They can't be arsed to take every little issue seriously. Some people wonder why the police will take a long time to show up at the scene of an accident when there is no injury involved, but will show up quickly if there is fighting or if somebody is injured. If it is an emergency, they'll drop something else they are doing (which is every bit as deserving of their attention) to handle the emergency instead.
(Emphasis mine.)
No, they are not. That's why, when they have to choose one over the other, they go to the more serious situation. Sucks that they have to choose, but they usually choose based on a reasonable basis.
I got a Windows 8 computer for my kid. While it's simple enough to figure out, it's a broken system on a non-touchscreen system.
Your "start menu" can span more than one screen. I imagine that if you had a touchscreen, a simple swipe would get you to the parts you cant see. With a mouse, you'll have to carry that thing once or twice to get from one side to the other if you've got it configured for more than one screen (which this one did out of the box). With a trackpad, multiple swipes will be required. Yay?
Why on earth would you count it as a benefit that the best way to use a GUI is to use the keyboard? Sure, I like the keyboard options, too, but the idea of a (good) graphical user interface where even basic actions are orders of magnitude easier with the keyboard is absurd. This is just one indication of how broken it is.
I will grant this could be a good UI for a touchscreen system, but not a non-touchscreen system. We have a well-developed GUI for a non-touchscreen system, widely adopted by corporate offices, yet Microsoft insists that we shouldn't have access anymore. I hope they pay for their insistence that we change.
Sorry, but there are mounds of evidence as to why the death penalty is not a deterrent (ie.: crimes of passion, psychological studies that show humans are *really* bad at thinking ahead and considering consequences ) and as long as there a still a chance of wrongful conviction, I won't stand for mandated state murder. Not to mention killing is morally wrong no matter what the context or circumstances.
I will happily see my tax dollars spent (and even increased) to incarcerate truly haneous offenders as long as is necessary.
I agree with your comment except for the highlighted part. How is it wrong to kill someone to stop them from killing someone else when no other options exist? This is not a hypothetical question, the circumstance arises regularly. Are you saying a SWAT team member is engaging in a wrong act because they kill a criminal before he shoots someone else? How many people does this criminal need to be threatening before you would rather the criminal be shot first?
While it may not be something you're willing to do, I suspect that even in your world view there are circumstances where it is preferable, even if it's not desired.
the death penalty is not a deterrent Not so much a deterrent, as a preventative. Most crimes are committed by repeat offenders. It would have the effect of removing that segment of the population who are genetically pre-disposed to have impulse control problems from the gene pool, and prevent them from committing more crimes. Unfortunately it also removes other people who have just had an unbearably bad day, or who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
How would these goals not be served by having them in prison until the day they die? With the added benefit that if we in fact find out the verdict was wrong we can release them.
Whether the immunisation works or not is certainly an issue but for the sake of good practice I would say the burden of proof should be with the nurses to prove that the immunisation *doesn't* work rather than demand proof that is does work.
I have a series of orange hats that is guaranteed to stop you from getting the flu, or robbed. I insist that you wear it, at least until you've proven otherwise.
Alternatively, I insist that you worship the god of my choice, until such time as you prove he/she/it doesn't exist.
But it's basically "I don't wanna".
I'll assume you're American, and even if you aren't, the people in the article are American. So, isn't "I don't wanna" a basic precept of the American culture? Pay taxes to England. "I don't wanna." Give up your guns. "I don't wanna."
Here's my take on the subject. First, while you won't get the flu from a protein-segment immunization, you can still have a reaction to it and suffer from the classic flu symptoms for some period of time (fever, tired, etc.). Second, the whole premise of the flu vaccine is making a(n educated) guess about which flu is most likely to spread, and make a vaccine that should counteract it. So, how often are they correct? If they're not often correct, they are essentially being fired for refusing to be subjected to a medical procedure of possibly no value. How does that not violate their basic freedoms?
Unfortunately, for the Japanese and other seafood lovers, giant squid have high levels of ammonia.
You haven't been to a strip club in a while. Imagine tossing dollar coins at the girls?
This sounds like a new sport until the bouncer breaks my throwing arm.
Seriously though, dollar bills are commonly used for tips, vending machines, etc. and keeping 5 in my pocket would be far less convenient than 5 $1 bills.
While all those excuses have a certain amount of validity, this doesn't stop millions of people from coping just fine without $1 bills.
There are other options. Examine countries with similar foreign policies and dissimilar airport security policies, and see which has a greater rate of captured terrorists, and which has more terrorist attempts. Of course, there just aren't a lot of countries with similar policies to the US, but there are a few countries with a similar policy by the terrorists, a prime one being Israel. So, what does Israel do to get their rates with dealing with terrorism, and why doesn't the US follow that 40-year practice instead of constantly reacting to a single threat that evaded their system?
An example to make my point clear. Suppose you're an Islamic fundamentalist ranting about US cultural imperialism. Using the tools you gradually change what you write, under a sequence of aliases, until soon you have the online opinions of a Neocon!
While I'm sure that the topic and position on that topic are part of the algorithm, I suspect it's a little more involved in that. Otherwise, there's going to be this one guy who just happens to be an Islamic fundamentalist, dislikes the Great Satan, and is quite a prolific writer. Likewise, I'm sure we could find a different tone of writing between the various Neocons.
While I'm not interested in being a test pilot, if it has been tested and found to be at least as safe as a car, why not? I try not to let irrational fear rule my life, while you apparently do.
But this company is definitely not a patent troll, and it looks like they make great products:
http://www.3dsystems.com/personal-3d-printers
I think that they should try and settle with the startup and allow them to pay them a license fee for each printer sold. $50/printer and everyone is happy. They get to use the patent and everyone goes home happy. The guy heading the startup should just call the big company and see what they can work out.
Anything can be negotiated.
This is definitely not legal advice, it could make things way worse, and I am not a lawyer.
I suspect that if this was true, 3D Systems would have contacted them when they became aware of the potential patent violation, rather than wait until they were backed in a corner. Something tells me they wanted more of that cash than just a simple licensing agreement (or even worse, a workaround).
No. http://www.climate.unibe.ch/~stocker/papers/bereiter09grl.pdf [unibe.ch]
I'm not sure how this paper relates, would you mind explaining?
The first couple sentences in the results section should indicate what he's talking about (in that he disagrees with the value his parent post puts in ice cores). I haven't read enough to know whether I agree or not.
Why on earth would I believe the genetics questions you brought up had anything to do with your parent post when he doesn't mention that once? He mentions other people using it for DNA screening (valid, but unlikely), and selling data (also valid, not sure how likely), but not as a way of ending the racist gene. Also, given the collision rate of current DNA tests, almost anything is better than violating a bunch of people's privacy, stigmatizing some individuals, and having data that is probably going to be used incorrectly. Perhaps you don't value privacy that much, but I and a number of other people do.
First, they are looking at a relatively small population, so the odds of two unrelated matches is lower than if you were scanning a database of millions of profiles.
From what I've read, the reasoning for the small area is that the lighter was sold nearby. While that increases the probability the person lived there, it's no guarantee. So, the question is more, "what are the odds of someone visiting having a duplicate match", rather than "what are the odds of two locals having a duplicate match".
The whole premise of what I'm reading in your post is that rape and murder have more than a genetic predisposition, but that it is as guaranteed as eye color. I've heard no indications that this is the case, so I don't think them wearing protection is going to be the ultimate gift to mankind that you suppose it is. Moreover, I'm sure we can find a number of cases where the rapist or murderer was able to have multiple sexual encounters that were consensual and resulted in children, so this "evil gene" could still be passed on even if he was "practicing safe rape". That kind of negates the whole point of your argument.
You're argument of "There's got to be a better way to solve these rapes than asking all of us to give up private information at the threat of arrest." is also a Red Herring. No one in the article was threatened with prison time for not volunteering their DNA.
No, of course not, but you're completely ignoring peer pressure, which does have a lot of research to back up its existence and power, in inluincing people to "volunteer". So, would you want to be the one guy on your block that didn't submit a sample? Do you imagine it would make you a little uncomfortable? Then there's the whole "this worked so well, if only we could require people to do this every time" scenario, which isn't farfetched, and then we will have people being imprisoned for refusing to "voluntarily" give a sample.
Personally, I liked the one from Speed. You know, the one that looked something like this. I hope the TSA are keeping their eyes out for that one, too.
Let's say... Sell a CD copy of Michael Jackson : 15 years in jail Kill Michael Jackson : 4 years in jail makes sense...
Well, to be fair, perpetuating his music is the greater crime...
Kidding. Sheesh. But I do change the radio station whenever his music comes on.
I RTFA this morning. This isn't Joe Blow getting a few movies from the pirate bay, this is a counterfeiter. Copyright infringement isn't theft, but I'd say this is, as the criminal is getting the money that should have gone to the movies' producers..
I see. Considering the money trail alone, tell me something. How is 10,500 pirated CDs in the possession of one man any different than 10,500 people in possession of one pirated CD? In either case, the producer is still left sans payment.
Sorry, but false logic is false.
In one, RIAA would like to fine one guy for what those other 10,499 did, too. In the other, not only is one guy breaking the law 10,500 times, those he would have sold to would have been breaking the law, as well, unwittingly or not. That's the difference.
Its an activity, no different to any sport.
To be fair, there are actually quite a few sports that don't risk impregnating women.
Those would be the sports that nerds aren't interested in...
That's a far better reason than what you gave before. I still don't agree with it, but I can see the point.