Wrong. When the Supreme Court declines to hear a case, the Supreme Court has ruled on the case.
That's not true. When the Supreme Court declines to hear a case, no precedent is set. That means that within the circuit where the Appellate Court has ruled, the precedent of that Appellate Court stands. Other circuits are not bound by the decision, however. And there is nothing to prevent the Supreme Court from hearing a similar case in the future.
The only time you are REQUIRED to buy a TV license is if you have TV reception equipment. Don't want to pay the license? Don't have TV reception equipment. Simple!
Yes, that sounds perfectly fair.
By the way, I'd like to open a new type of supermarket in your area. I'll charge a monthly fee to anyone who has an oven in their home and you can get all the groceries you want. Sound unfair? Not at all. If you don't want to pay my fee, simply get rid of your oven.
Many of the libraries in the country carry copyrighted material. You can walk in and peruse the books at your leisure, for free.
Yes, but what you are forgetting is that despite what many media companies would have you believe, copyright is exactly what its name suggests: a right to copy. When you walk into a library, borrow a book, read it, then return it, no copies are being made, so copyright law is inapplicable. Of course, you can also photocopy the book, which may or may not be legal depending on the circumstances, but it is you the individual that is making the copy, and assuming any legal risks.
If a library offered books for digital download, then each time someone clicks the appropriate link on their browser, a copy of the work is made and transmitted to your computer. Millions of people can thus read their own personal copy simultaneously. In effect, the library is acting as a publisher/distributor of content, not a lender. Lending is not covered by copyright law, distribution is.
It's probably not constitutional whether you have permission to share the file or not. If you are violating copyright by sharing the file, then there is a serious Fifth Amendment issue protecting you from begin compelled to incriminate yourself, by providing your e-mail address, for instance.
If you are not violating copyright by sharing the file (if you have permission from the copyright holder, or are the copyright holder, for instance, or if the file is public domain) then surely there are First Amendment problems in banning certain types of communication without including compelled speech (your e-mail address.)
Either way, I don't see how this law could withstand constitutional scrutiny.
That particular bit has been ruled on by the US Supreme Court. You do not have to show a cop ID, you do have to provide your name. Check the ruling.
You're right about the ruling that you can be required to give police your name if state law requires it. You aren't quite right about the ID ruling, however. The precedent you are most likely thinking of is a California statute requiring people to be able to identify themselves to police. This was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court because it wasn't specific enough. The law didn't spell out what kind of ID was sufficient to satisfy the law. The Supreme Court has up to now deftly sidestepped the issue of the constitutionality of requiring people to carry specific forms of ID.
5) dont get prosecuted in any other country (nor home country, nor US) anymore, because one cant be prosecuted twice for the same crime
Wrong. Even in the U.S. which is one of the few countries with a "double jeopardy" protection, you can be tried twice for the same crime by what are known in legal terminology as "separate sovereigns". You can even be tried for the same crime in both state and federal courts within the U.S. because they are considered separate sovereigns.
For one reason or another, mostly looks and the inability to socialize, there are some who will go their whole life without the sex you describe as "freaky".
So we should never talk about great places to go hiking because it might depress wheelchair bound people? Or we shouldn't discuss how much we like a piece of music because the deaf will feel left out?
If you choose not to have sex in college, I can respect that choice. If you simply don't get lucky, you're probably not the only one. But don't get upset because some people have fun that you don't.
I have many friends who love skiing, and talk about all the great fun they've had and beautiful scenery they've enjoyed in the process. I tried skiing, but found I'm not sufficiently well coordinated to do it. Disappointing, sure, but I don't begrudge other people the fun.
Hate to break it to you, but laws are built upon morals.
Actually, in America, laws are built on rights. We have a right to life, therefore laws against murder. We have a right to personal property, therefore laws against stealing, etc. etc. One's morality is an individual concept. People of differing religions, for example, would have different ideas of what is morally right and wrong. Trying to codify such morals into laws would lead to very little freedom for individual choice for the individual, and it is such freedom which America has traditionally championed.
So, can you (or someone else, of course) explain to the laypeople how it can be that photons don't have mass, yet are influenced by gravity (at least, they are attracted by bodies like stars)?
Photons are both influenced by gravity, and can influence gravity.
To understand how they are influenced by gravity, one must understand that according to general relativity, spacetime is curved, and bodies follow paths called geodesics which are paths of minimal distance. (Geodesics on a spherical surface, for example, are segments of great circles.) Photons travel along a special class of geodesics called "null geodesics" (Which don't exist in ordinary Euclidean spaces, but do in spacetime. They are essentially paths of zero "length" where length is defined a bit differently for spacetime.) Anyhow, massive bodies influence matter around them by curving spacetime. In curved spacetime, geodesics are no longer straight lines, but curved paths. Photons trajectories can thus be bent by massive object even though they have no mass, in contrast to Newton's theory of gravity which holds that massless objects do not participate in gravity.
Additionally, photons can influence gravity themselves. According to Einstein, it is not just mass, but momentum and energy that curve spacetime. (This is through a quantity called the stress-energy tensor, T, which can be represented by a 4x4 matrix). Since photons, although massless, have momentum and energy (this is allowed by special relativity, forbidden by Newtonian mechanics) they can gravitate as well.
Thats only true if you insist that the messages that pass between the computers have to be executable code.
That's what buffer overflows are for. They permit one to execute code through clients which are not supposed to run code inside received messages. In a perfect world there would be no buffer overflows, and users could simply configure their clients not to run code receieved from untrusted sources, and there'd be no need for firewalls. We don't live in a perfect world.
You, and many other posters, are failing to distinguish between the geographic north pole and the magnetic north pole. They are two different things, and they aren't even all that close to each other. The geographic north pole is one of the two points at which the earth's rotation axis intersects the surface of the earth (it is the one about which the earth rotates counterclockwise, the other being the south pole.) The magnetic pole is the point toward which a compass needle points. The geographic pole is not moving! Santa, who lives at the geographic pole, will therefore not need to relocate.
Although compasses may behave erratically, the GPS system (which is based on the geographic poles) should continue to work without a hitch, unless the solar wind causes sufficient EM interference to render it inoperable. Navigation by the stars should also continue to be reliable.
Ah, but the key difference is that if you spoof someone else's site, you can't spoof their certificate unless you can somehow get ahold of their private key. With this frames approach, even if the user checks the certificate, it still looks good, and he may think he has a secure, encrypted connection to his bank.
True that many users don't check certificates, and to those, this will make little difference, but some people do.
But there is still P(Y), p for precision, code which is military only. The encryption keys for using this code are classified. P(Y) code is more accurate than C/A code because it is a much, much longer sequence before it repeats.
You're partly correct. The P(Y) codes do allow greater precision in position, but not because the PRN codes are longer. The long PRN codes are primarily for security. The reason you get better accuracy with the P(Y) codes is they are dual frequency, unlike the C/A codes which operate on a single frequency. The dual freqency system allows the receiver to make corrections for ionospheric delays, as the two frequencies are delayed by different amounts by the ionosphere. By correcting for these delays, more accurate positioning is possible.
If I were a company director, the first reaction would be to see if open source software exists to do the same job, and if it were cheaper to hire/contract to write inhouse software.
One could also simply find a programmer who will develop the custom code for a small amount of money, say $1, in exchange for being hired to do something trivial, like show up for 1 day of work to change the paper in the copying machine for a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Since I (and undoubtedly many others, I'm sure) use SSH for everything, I wonder how they plan to shut down even an insignificant fraction of any kind of sharing?
Simple. Ever heard of a man-in-the-middle? You make an SSH connection to a computer on the other side of this software. It detects you are using SSH, and steps in during the key negotiation protocol. Your client complains that the host key has changed. You either refuse the new host key and you're SOL, or you accept it and the software can still look for copyrighted material. You complain about security, but they claim your connection is still "secure" as it is reencrypted on both sides by this software.
These devices work both ways. If an accident is questionable, this could prove you were not at fault.
That would be even worse. What's to stop me from tampering with my box so as to report I never speed, then driving with impunity at insane speeds killing people.
Unless you believe in "trusted systems" (which most Slashdotters don't seem to) you should never trust the validity of any device in control of a user which is used to exonerate the user.
This doesn't solve the legal problems, I'm afraid.
Really? How so? He's still buying the music. Just because the host company doesn't want to sell to foreigners doesn't mean it's illegal in the target country to buy such things.
Slashdot Mirror
That's not true. When the Supreme Court declines to hear a case, no precedent is set. That means that within the circuit where the Appellate Court has ruled, the precedent of that Appellate Court stands. Other circuits are not bound by the decision, however. And there is nothing to prevent the Supreme Court from hearing a similar case in the future.
Yes, that sounds perfectly fair.
By the way, I'd like to open a new type of supermarket in your area. I'll charge a monthly fee to anyone who has an oven in their home and you can get all the groceries you want. Sound unfair? Not at all. If you don't want to pay my fee, simply get rid of your oven.
Yes, but what you are forgetting is that despite what many media companies would have you believe, copyright is exactly what its name suggests: a right to copy. When you walk into a library, borrow a book, read it, then return it, no copies are being made, so copyright law is inapplicable. Of course, you can also photocopy the book, which may or may not be legal depending on the circumstances, but it is you the individual that is making the copy, and assuming any legal risks.
If a library offered books for digital download, then each time someone clicks the appropriate link on their browser, a copy of the work is made and transmitted to your computer. Millions of people can thus read their own personal copy simultaneously. In effect, the library is acting as a publisher/distributor of content, not a lender. Lending is not covered by copyright law, distribution is.
It's probably not constitutional whether you have permission to share the file or not. If you are violating copyright by sharing the file, then there is a serious Fifth Amendment issue protecting you from begin compelled to incriminate yourself, by providing your e-mail address, for instance.
If you are not violating copyright by sharing the file (if you have permission from the copyright holder, or are the copyright holder, for instance, or if the file is public domain) then surely there are First Amendment problems in banning certain types of communication without including compelled speech (your e-mail address.)
Either way, I don't see how this law could withstand constitutional scrutiny.
Like TCP/IP?
You're right about the ruling that you can be required to give police your name if state law requires it. You aren't quite right about the ID ruling, however. The precedent you are most likely thinking of is a California statute requiring people to be able to identify themselves to police. This was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court because it wasn't specific enough. The law didn't spell out what kind of ID was sufficient to satisfy the law. The Supreme Court has up to now deftly sidestepped the issue of the constitutionality of requiring people to carry specific forms of ID.
Wrong. Even in the U.S. which is one of the few countries with a "double jeopardy" protection, you can be tried twice for the same crime by what are known in legal terminology as "separate sovereigns". You can even be tried for the same crime in both state and federal courts within the U.S. because they are considered separate sovereigns.
So we should never talk about great places to go hiking because it might depress wheelchair bound people? Or we shouldn't discuss how much we like a piece of music because the deaf will feel left out?
If you choose not to have sex in college, I can respect that choice. If you simply don't get lucky, you're probably not the only one. But don't get upset because some people have fun that you don't.
I have many friends who love skiing, and talk about all the great fun they've had and beautiful scenery they've enjoyed in the process. I tried skiing, but found I'm not sufficiently well coordinated to do it. Disappointing, sure, but I don't begrudge other people the fun.
Actually, in America, laws are built on rights. We have a right to life, therefore laws against murder. We have a right to personal property, therefore laws against stealing, etc. etc. One's morality is an individual concept. People of differing religions, for example, would have different ideas of what is morally right and wrong. Trying to codify such morals into laws would lead to very little freedom for individual choice for the individual, and it is such freedom which America has traditionally championed.
Photons are both influenced by gravity, and can influence gravity.
To understand how they are influenced by gravity, one must understand that according to general relativity, spacetime is curved, and bodies follow paths called geodesics which are paths of minimal distance. (Geodesics on a spherical surface, for example, are segments of great circles.) Photons travel along a special class of geodesics called "null geodesics" (Which don't exist in ordinary Euclidean spaces, but do in spacetime. They are essentially paths of zero "length" where length is defined a bit differently for spacetime.) Anyhow, massive bodies influence matter around them by curving spacetime. In curved spacetime, geodesics are no longer straight lines, but curved paths. Photons trajectories can thus be bent by massive object even though they have no mass, in contrast to Newton's theory of gravity which holds that massless objects do not participate in gravity.
Additionally, photons can influence gravity themselves. According to Einstein, it is not just mass, but momentum and energy that curve spacetime. (This is through a quantity called the stress-energy tensor, T, which can be represented by a 4x4 matrix). Since photons, although massless, have momentum and energy (this is allowed by special relativity, forbidden by Newtonian mechanics) they can gravitate as well.
I think the poster meant that a separate firewall be used between your PC and the Internet, not that you should forego Internet access entirely!
That's what buffer overflows are for. They permit one to execute code through clients which are not supposed to run code inside received messages. In a perfect world there would be no buffer overflows, and users could simply configure their clients not to run code receieved from untrusted sources, and there'd be no need for firewalls. We don't live in a perfect world.
You, and many other posters, are failing to distinguish between the geographic north pole and the magnetic north pole. They are two different things, and they aren't even all that close to each other. The geographic north pole is one of the two points at which the earth's rotation axis intersects the surface of the earth (it is the one about which the earth rotates counterclockwise, the other being the south pole.) The magnetic pole is the point toward which a compass needle points. The geographic pole is not moving! Santa, who lives at the geographic pole, will therefore not need to relocate.
Although compasses may behave erratically, the GPS system (which is based on the geographic poles) should continue to work without a hitch, unless the solar wind causes sufficient EM interference to render it inoperable. Navigation by the stars should also continue to be reliable.
True that many users don't check certificates, and to those, this will make little difference, but some people do.
In principle yes, but even better is the fact that Galileo itself will offer dual frequency for civilian use.
You're partly correct. The P(Y) codes do allow greater precision in position, but not because the PRN codes are longer. The long PRN codes are primarily for security. The reason you get better accuracy with the P(Y) codes is they are dual frequency, unlike the C/A codes which operate on a single frequency. The dual freqency system allows the receiver to make corrections for ionospheric delays, as the two frequencies are delayed by different amounts by the ionosphere. By correcting for these delays, more accurate positioning is possible.
Care to provide a reference for this assertion? Any documentation I've read says the civilian bands are free for anyone to use.
One could also simply find a programmer who will develop the custom code for a small amount of money, say $1, in exchange for being hired to do something trivial, like show up for 1 day of work to change the paper in the copying machine for a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Simple. Ever heard of a man-in-the-middle? You make an SSH connection to a computer on the other side of this software. It detects you are using SSH, and steps in during the key negotiation protocol. Your client complains that the host key has changed. You either refuse the new host key and you're SOL, or you accept it and the software can still look for copyrighted material. You complain about security, but they claim your connection is still "secure" as it is reencrypted on both sides by this software.
That would be even worse. What's to stop me from tampering with my box so as to report I never speed, then driving with impunity at insane speeds killing people.
Unless you believe in "trusted systems" (which most Slashdotters don't seem to) you should never trust the validity of any device in control of a user which is used to exonerate the user.
Well, if they find they can't tape the show because some broadcast flag is set, they might take more of an interest.
So, don't use your old boxy furnature. Simply extrude new furnature to fit in your corners.
Really? How so? He's still buying the music. Just because the host company doesn't want to sell to foreigners doesn't mean it's illegal in the target country to buy such things.
The truly tech savvys will make their own cables.