The Psions were overgrown palmtops, not tablets. The iPad really is that great - not because of Apple's iOS (I haven't used Honeycomb, but I I do have an Android phone and think it would scale up just as smoothly as iOS), but because it's phenomenal hardware for the price.
That's a cool bit of tech, but I'd rather have a microscope that works off ambient light and doesn't need a smartphone/laptop/whatever to process the data. And the real thing isn't that much more expensive, at least on the used market.
Possibly, although dehydration takes a fair amount of energy and leaves you with a fairly low energy density. The alcohols, on the other hand, could conceivably be burned in internal-combustion engines very much like the ones in use today.
So? Being sympathetic to people whose lives are hard doesn't mean that he owes them. He might choose to give them stuff, on the grounds that he's a nice guy, or that it's barbaric to let people starve to death, but that's a far cry from deciding that they have a right to the productivity of others.
Yes, that's pretty much it. Lots of soot-producing compounds (that's why they make charcoal; it burns cleanly as a result of all the non-carbon stuff having been cooked off), the transport is expensive, and trees take too long to grow. Some kind of cane is probably the best bet, but then you've got to dehydrate it.
this isn't any different than if a landlord puts a secret camera in an apartment.
Of course it is; every apartment I've ever rented has had a lease that guaranteed me certain rights in return for paying rent, one of which rights is the exclusive use of the property with exceptions for emergencies and cases where the landlord requires access in order to perform maintenance (where notice must be given). If the kid that sold it to her had given her a bill of sale and included the original receipt where he was shown to be the original purchaser, then perhaps she would have had the kind of iron-clad case you believe she has. As it is, reasonable people can disagree about whether or not she had reason to believe that the laptop was a legitimate purchase; that's part of why the defendants lost their petition for summary judgement (which you can win basically only if you would win even if every disputed fact in the case were read as negatively against you as possible).
I'd much rather have a federal judge on my side than not, and this one appears to be on her side, but it's up to a jury to decide.
Law enforcement doesn't enter into this until after the fact. The photos were seized by a private organization operating on behalf of the legitimate owner of the property. The question is whether the ECPA was violated in the process; the court seems to think so, but can't bring a prosecution of its own.
Well, having now read TFA, it looks mostly like the court found only that there wasn't enough evidence to grant the defendants summary judgement... which is a long way from saying that she definitely deserved the protections of a legitimate owner.
From a quick look now, I actually did find one thing interesting. The court based its opinion primarily on the idea that the communications were being intercepted. Whether the same court would have felt as strongly if the LoJack-for-Laptops crew had simply taken pictures with the webcam is an open question.
All sorts of things are possible legal arguments, but I'd start with "you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy when using someone else's computer, especially if it's stolen".
When you introduce a firearm to a situation, you have escalated it tremendously. You shouldn't do that if you don't actually plan to shoot if they don't comply - as I noted, the one time I did pull a gun on someone, the situation didn't require me to shoot him - but if he had started climbing my fence you can bet your ass I'd have shot. You don't pull a gun on someone just for speeding, period, and the guy should have been thrown off the force for that stunt. What if he had tripped? I'm betting he had his finger on the trigger.
It's also worth noting that the military and law enforcement are very, very different things, with different goals, even if the two have adopted some of each other's tactics.
good cops often choose to cover up for bad cops. Why, I'm not sure
I am not generally a fan of cops. However, they do a difficult and occasionally dangerous job (though it's a lot less dangerous than many would have you believe). When they send out the call for "officer needs assistance", they don't want to end up like Russell Crowe's character in American Gangster with "no officers available to help".
Actually, depending on where you live, you may in fact have the right to use deadly force if you think your property is being invaded. Where I live, I can kill someone for attempting to break into my home or car if I happen to be inside either of them at the time.
such as a plain-clothed off duty officer pulling a gun on a motorcyclist
I'm going to assume you're talking about the motorist in Maryland. What was the "understandable mistake" that justified pulling a gun? You never point a gun at anything you don't intend to shoot. I've pointed a gun at one human being in my life - a guy wearing a ski mask in 55 degree F (13 C for you across the pond) weather who was at my back gate and trying to get in.
We also have to wrestle obvious perps to the ground and maybe clonk them with a nightstick to subdue them, which is brutality and "illegal".
No, it's neither brutality nor illegal if it's what you need to do in order to subdue even an "obvious perp". I don't like cops, but I can admit that they have some tough calls and that some people won't submit until they're beaten. I have a problem when the cops keep beating after they submit.
Well, unless you're wearing a uniform, the Geneva Conventions and their protections don't apply to you. Plainclothes fighters may be shot on sight and without trial.
Here's a hint: as long as government is of any meaningful size, it's going to control a lot of money. Those who run it are going to become rich if they are not already, because they control the money and where it goes. "The rich control government" is a truism.
Actually, there's a book (haven't read it, just heard about it) that explores the problems that arise from having a legal system in which judges are all former lawyers and systematically favor the legal profession over all others. Part of that is the complexity of the law, like those awful parts of federal law that delegate rule-making authority to executive departments while giving full force of law to those rules.
There's nothing inherently wrong with having lawyers write the law, but there are many things wrong with the system we have. One of the most insidious is something I know from hospitals. Because they receive federal money (from Medicare), they are subject to federal regulation. Some of the laws criminalize conduct that is contrary to the hospital's policies. That's right: break a minor rule in the employee handbook, and the remedy isn't getting fired (which would be extreme, but justifiable). It's being sent to jail.
"Resisting arrest" is an offense that you can be charged with and prosecuted for even if the original arrest was for a charge which was later dropped, in much the same way that Martha Stewart was convicted only on charges of lying to police. The "original arrest" is subject to very few limitations - the police can detain you without charging you with a crime for up to 24 hours (IIRC, IANAL) and if pressed can assert that you refused a lawful order. In one of those delightful twists of the law, you need not follow an unlawful order of a police officer, but what constitutes an unlawful order is not always black-letter law and is subject to review by the court - so unless the order is something like "I order you to kill that man", your chances of success rapidly approach nil.
And all of that case law came from people who got in trouble recording audio. Even if they were eventually vindicated, it's easier from the store owner's point of view to avoid any possible misunderstanding.
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The Psions were overgrown palmtops, not tablets. The iPad really is that great - not because of Apple's iOS (I haven't used Honeycomb, but I I do have an Android phone and think it would scale up just as smoothly as iOS), but because it's phenomenal hardware for the price.
That's a cool bit of tech, but I'd rather have a microscope that works off ambient light and doesn't need a smartphone/laptop/whatever to process the data. And the real thing isn't that much more expensive, at least on the used market.
Possibly, although dehydration takes a fair amount of energy and leaves you with a fairly low energy density. The alcohols, on the other hand, could conceivably be burned in internal-combustion engines very much like the ones in use today.
There is plenty of money in the poor. Why do you think that the Walton family occupies something like half the top 10 slots in the Forbes list?
So? Being sympathetic to people whose lives are hard doesn't mean that he owes them. He might choose to give them stuff, on the grounds that he's a nice guy, or that it's barbaric to let people starve to death, but that's a far cry from deciding that they have a right to the productivity of others.
Too messy? Too expensive? Too slow to grow?
Yes, that's pretty much it. Lots of soot-producing compounds (that's why they make charcoal; it burns cleanly as a result of all the non-carbon stuff having been cooked off), the transport is expensive, and trees take too long to grow. Some kind of cane is probably the best bet, but then you've got to dehydrate it.
this isn't any different than if a landlord puts a secret camera in an apartment.
Of course it is; every apartment I've ever rented has had a lease that guaranteed me certain rights in return for paying rent, one of which rights is the exclusive use of the property with exceptions for emergencies and cases where the landlord requires access in order to perform maintenance (where notice must be given). If the kid that sold it to her had given her a bill of sale and included the original receipt where he was shown to be the original purchaser, then perhaps she would have had the kind of iron-clad case you believe she has. As it is, reasonable people can disagree about whether or not she had reason to believe that the laptop was a legitimate purchase; that's part of why the defendants lost their petition for summary judgement (which you can win basically only if you would win even if every disputed fact in the case were read as negatively against you as possible).
I'd much rather have a federal judge on my side than not, and this one appears to be on her side, but it's up to a jury to decide.
Law enforcement doesn't enter into this until after the fact. The photos were seized by a private organization operating on behalf of the legitimate owner of the property. The question is whether the ECPA was violated in the process; the court seems to think so, but can't bring a prosecution of its own.
Well, having now read TFA, it looks mostly like the court found only that there wasn't enough evidence to grant the defendants summary judgement... which is a long way from saying that she definitely deserved the protections of a legitimate owner.
From a quick look now, I actually did find one thing interesting. The court based its opinion primarily on the idea that the communications were being intercepted. Whether the same court would have felt as strongly if the LoJack-for-Laptops crew had simply taken pictures with the webcam is an open question.
All sorts of things are possible legal arguments, but I'd start with "you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy when using someone else's computer, especially if it's stolen".
When you introduce a firearm to a situation, you have escalated it tremendously. You shouldn't do that if you don't actually plan to shoot if they don't comply - as I noted, the one time I did pull a gun on someone, the situation didn't require me to shoot him - but if he had started climbing my fence you can bet your ass I'd have shot. You don't pull a gun on someone just for speeding, period, and the guy should have been thrown off the force for that stunt. What if he had tripped? I'm betting he had his finger on the trigger.
It's also worth noting that the military and law enforcement are very, very different things, with different goals, even if the two have adopted some of each other's tactics.
Why would they care? All their stuff is obsolete long before it would be out of copyright, and they have no duty to disclose the source.
It's not a flood plain; it's a coastline. Ocean water was blown onto land; the rains had little or nothing to do with it.
An oath is not a legally binding contract
IANAL, and am willing to believe you, but why is it not, if it is freely taken as a condition of employment?
Don't know why this is modded funny, it's the truth.
good cops often choose to cover up for bad cops. Why, I'm not sure
I am not generally a fan of cops. However, they do a difficult and occasionally dangerous job (though it's a lot less dangerous than many would have you believe). When they send out the call for "officer needs assistance", they don't want to end up like Russell Crowe's character in American Gangster with "no officers available to help".
Actually, depending on where you live, you may in fact have the right to use deadly force if you think your property is being invaded. Where I live, I can kill someone for attempting to break into my home or car if I happen to be inside either of them at the time.
such as a plain-clothed off duty officer pulling a gun on a motorcyclist
I'm going to assume you're talking about the motorist in Maryland. What was the "understandable mistake" that justified pulling a gun? You never point a gun at anything you don't intend to shoot. I've pointed a gun at one human being in my life - a guy wearing a ski mask in 55 degree F (13 C for you across the pond) weather who was at my back gate and trying to get in.
We also have to wrestle obvious perps to the ground and maybe clonk them with a nightstick to subdue them, which is brutality and "illegal".
No, it's neither brutality nor illegal if it's what you need to do in order to subdue even an "obvious perp". I don't like cops, but I can admit that they have some tough calls and that some people won't submit until they're beaten. I have a problem when the cops keep beating after they submit.
Well, unless you're wearing a uniform, the Geneva Conventions and their protections don't apply to you. Plainclothes fighters may be shot on sight and without trial.
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Cited
Here's a hint: as long as government is of any meaningful size, it's going to control a lot of money. Those who run it are going to become rich if they are not already, because they control the money and where it goes. "The rich control government" is a truism.
Actually, there's a book (haven't read it, just heard about it) that explores the problems that arise from having a legal system in which judges are all former lawyers and systematically favor the legal profession over all others. Part of that is the complexity of the law, like those awful parts of federal law that delegate rule-making authority to executive departments while giving full force of law to those rules.
There's nothing inherently wrong with having lawyers write the law, but there are many things wrong with the system we have. One of the most insidious is something I know from hospitals. Because they receive federal money (from Medicare), they are subject to federal regulation. Some of the laws criminalize conduct that is contrary to the hospital's policies. That's right: break a minor rule in the employee handbook, and the remedy isn't getting fired (which would be extreme, but justifiable). It's being sent to jail.
"Resisting arrest" is an offense that you can be charged with and prosecuted for even if the original arrest was for a charge which was later dropped, in much the same way that Martha Stewart was convicted only on charges of lying to police. The "original arrest" is subject to very few limitations - the police can detain you without charging you with a crime for up to 24 hours (IIRC, IANAL) and if pressed can assert that you refused a lawful order. In one of those delightful twists of the law, you need not follow an unlawful order of a police officer, but what constitutes an unlawful order is not always black-letter law and is subject to review by the court - so unless the order is something like "I order you to kill that man", your chances of success rapidly approach nil.
And all of that case law came from people who got in trouble recording audio. Even if they were eventually vindicated, it's easier from the store owner's point of view to avoid any possible misunderstanding.