Dude - a bunch of innocent germans were kidnapped in their home nation and whisked away to who knows where by a foreign power.
And, you're arguing over whether or not they were tortured... Oh, gee, I'm comforted to think that they might not have been in complete agony the whole time. Sounds like a nice trip - I wonder how you go about signing up for one of these unplanned vacations?
Whatever happened to habeas corpus and due process, let alone bail?
Yeah, looking at the page you linked to, I'm not too worried about storage densities hitting those limits anytime soon. Bekenstein's bound translates into something like 10^38 bits in a 1 gram container 1cm in radius. Maybe in a century of exponential storage growth we might start hitting those kinds of limits, but if we actually work out the laws of physics to a level such that we can store data at that density we'll probably have unlocked most of the secrets of the universe by then anyway...
Yup. Perhaps the shipping companies need to pay their employees more, or whatever.
I've seen lots of discussion elsewhere around "proper packaging." That seems like a bit of a cop-out when you consider their requirements for "proper packaging." Sure, there isn't much you can do to eliminate turbulence, so your package does need to handle a few Gs. However, it seems like the shipping industry is proposing that everybody spends an extra $75 on packaging so that they can save $5 in handling costs.
So we can move all those carbon emissions from serveral engines in cars to one big electric plant? How is this supposed to help the environment and be better, especially since it will require additional infrastructure?
Simple. A single large power plant is FAR more efficient than lots of gasoline engines. You don't even need regulation to make this happen - more efficiency means less wasted money on fuel and it is always worth the investment at large scale. If I told a consumer that they can have an extra 10 mpg for an extra $50k outlay, they would laugh, but a power plant operator would consider that a trifle of an investment.
Likewise, environmental controls are easier to implement on large plants. Sure, they will always put out more pollution on an absolute scale than a car, but 1000 cars definitely generate a lot more emissions than a power plant that charges 1000 electric cars.
I suspect the infrastructure problems will be relatively minor in comparison.
Hydrogen is the only answer, really.
Hydrogen requires its own infrastructure, and it doesn't exist freely in nature, so you need to run all those big electric plants you derided just to manufacture it in the first place.
Hydrogen is a way of distributing energy that is different from electric lines, and it has its own pros/cons. It is not in itself an energy source. I don't pretend to be able to compare hydrogen vs grid energy distribution - I can see the advantages and problems with both approaches.
Running base-load plants more and peak plants less is actually good for the grid - assuming the change happens slowly enough for the grid to keep up.
In the meantime, they can run peak plants at night.
Generally base-load plants are cheaper than peak plants to operate. Their problem is that generally they are only economical to run 24x7. So, right now they can't build a ton of them since half of the time they will be idle.
Charging cars at night creates more demand for base load, which makes the entire grid operate more efficiently.
Now, NIMBY is a real problem that stands in the way of ANY utility improvements. However, that really doesn't offer any unique problems for electric cars. The solution to NIMBY will be a simple one - once people start getting used to brownouts they'll be less likely to vote against power plant zoning plans...
Well, arguably the electric utilities are better regulated than most bandwidth providers. At least where I live the general sense is that rates are fair.
I do agree that this could just be warming up to the PUC for rate hikes.
Sure, an extra 15-30 amps at 220V is only an incremental change from the status quo. However, it is still an increase. The utility company can handle any house switching from gas to electric heat (to use your illustration). However, if a whole neighborhood with gas heat switched to electric heat in a single month, they might very well run into problems.
Consider that air conditioners, which also pull a similar amount of power, are considered a big problem for the grid today - to the point where solar power is becoming economical at the point of use.
However, I think that air-conditioners might actually point to the fact that electric vehicles won't be much of a problem after all. The grid clearly is already sized to handle air-conditioners, and electric vehicles pull their power during the night, when air conditioners are pulling less power. If anything this will help even out the baseline power requirements, allowing utilities to depend less on expensive peaker power generators.
Well, in theory since they charge for use and not "unlimited use" that is limited the utilities can just fix their infrastructure using existing rate structures.
This could be a crisis if everybody in a city buys an electric car in a six month period of time, but as long as adoption is gradual they should be able to handle it.
Also, electric rates are regulated. If utilities need to incur a cost to maintain service, they just petition the PUC, and they up the rates.
I agree. I can see how distribution before you reach the home might be taxed, since while most new homes get 200 amp service I doubt the infrastructure is designed for every home to pull all 200 amps at the same time.
Also, consider that most charging is likely to take place at night. That will have a huge leveling effect on the grid. Rather than going into panic mode the electric utilities should just work with auto-makers to build timers into their chargers (maybe give the car a charge up to 25-50% if it is really low right away, and then defer the rest of the charge until the middle of the night, or have a switch to select the charging mode). They should also educate electric car owners on rate plans that charge less for power consumed at night.
Agreed. Process is a tool. It can solve SOME problems. It is best applied in small doses in the place where it is most needed - kind of like medicine.
I actually am a big believer in Six Sigma - it works great! (Just ask the auto manufacturers.) I don't like corporate-level Six Sigma programs. These turn into exercises where EVERYTHING is a Sigma project. Usually they involve perverse incentives (rewards to individuals for creating projects - which is what you end up with lots of).
If you do something 10+ times a day, and your output is inconsistent, and the fact that it is inconsistent ACTUALLY CAUSES PROBLEMS, and those problems have a substantial cost, then chances are that Sigma is going to do you a lot of good.
If you do something 10 times a year, or nobody cares that sometimes you answer your phone on the 3rd ring vs the 4th, then it is just a waste of money.
Often Sigma INCREASES the cost of producing a particular work output. This is by design. If bad screws are causing your cars to fall apart then buying good screws will cost you more, but that is fine since nobody wants to buy cars that fall apart. The goal of Sigma is to decrease the total cost, by not having to throw out half of the items you produce.
Too often Sigma is applied to one step in a whole process with the goal of making that one step cheaper. Usually the time invested in doing this ends of costing more than the resulting savings, and usually the overall process suffers because cutting corners on one step often leads to bigger problems downstream.
Sigma/CMMI/etc are about quality - not cost. If done right they will often increase your process cost. Their benefit comes in the output. However, you have to ask the question first "do I need this?" If your output isn't that bad currently, then you're solving a problem that doesn't exist.
Back in the 1980s, during the height of the cold war when the USSR was the biggest threat anybody in the US or Western Europe (or Eastern Europe for that matter) faced, the KGB bought intelligence wholesale. From the busts that were made they didn't even have to pay all that much for it, certainly not in comparison to the value of the data.
Consider who leaked this stuff to wikileaks - it wasn't the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. It was some fairly low-level officer in the military. There are hundreds of thousands of people like this that have access to stuff that is classified. Do you think that an outfit the size of China/etc won't be able to find somebody to bribe?
No doubt the motives of those who leak to wikileaks are going to be different than those leaking stuff to China. However, if you need to disseminate secrets THAT widely it is very hard to keep them secret, unless there is some real sense of urgency. Troops hiding in the middle of some warzone have incentive to keep their location secret. Some guy manning a supply depot supporting a 5-year counter-insurgency isn't going to have the same sense of duty.
I do agree with your arguments. Additionally, if you figure that we're the descendants of the survivors of that plague it stands to reason that we'd have a larger level of genetic resistance against it as well. Who can say for sure though...
True enough, it is very unlikely that anything bad would have happened to the box. However, consider that if something bad DID happen, what the consequences would be.
Based on the wording on the notice, if this was actually done by the government it was done under seizure laws.
Seizure is a legal principle where no human being is accused of a crime. Instead, the government files a complaint against the property itself, and then finds it guilty of crime. The constitution only grants human rights to humans, so the theory is that all those constitutional protections don't apply.
The fact that the property actually belongs to a human being isn't of great concern to the courts, apparently.
Of course, this is nothing more than an end-run around due process. If somebody tried to do this back in the 1780s there would have been lots of tar and feathers involved.
I was reading an article in a journal (Science I think?) back in the 90s, about the 1918 flu virus. The researches drew some conclusions about the old virus by applying more modern techniques, including sequencing. They obtained the virus from US military tissue samples (apparently the US military preserved tissue samples from dead soldiers back then - in paraffin I think).
They mentioned that they shipped the samples by FedEx. So, samples of tissue containing a plague that killed a substantial portion of the human race were in some box on the back of a truck right next to somebody's toner cartridge delivery and some legal records...
Just because Amazon doesn't COLLECT sales tax doesn't mean you do not have to pay it.
Well, that depends on your definition of "have to."
The state says that you have to pay it, by state law. The US constitution says that the state isn't allowed to collect this tax from you. The federal courts have generally allowed them to collect it anyway. and thus the law can still be enforced.
So, the bottom line is that if you don't pay it, and if the state finds out and takes you to court, then you might end up being fined. Whether this is "right" or "wrong" depends on your definitions of those terms. In practice it is almost completely unenforceable, at least not until states can get their hands on sales records. If that happens, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a rise in mailbox rentals.:)
perhaps you could wake up to the fact that you are one country and have uniform tax laws
Actually, at least on paper the US is governed federally, as opposed to the unitary system of government used in most of Europe. The difference is significant.
In most European nations local governments are a matter of convenience, and they are completely subject to the centralized government. The national parliament could dissolve any local assembly with a vote, and as a result tax policy tends to be centralized.
In the US states are semi-sovereign entities. The national government does not generally have the power to override state law, except where the constitutional rights of an individual are infringed, or except as enumerated under the constitution. One of these enumerations is that only the Federal government can regulate interstate commerce. The states are individually unitary governments - any level of government below the state exists at the state's convenience. This is why you sometimes hear about local school boards or city governments being taken over by the state if they are mismanaged. The states cannot be taken over in this manner.
Now, over time the lines have gotten blurred quite a bit by the general expansion of federal power.
The big issue in the US is that tax policy has gotten out-of-hand and most people do not perceive that their taxes are spent in a useful way. So, nobody wants to have uniform tax laws since they view new tax laws as being likely to just result in everybody paying more. Now, compared to most Europeans the average American pays fairly little tax. However, the average American doesn't get free healthcare, free college-level education, very generous unemployment benefits, modern public transit, or half of the other social programs that the average European receives for their taxes. They aren't likely to get them either, judging by what came of national healthcare...
It has to be payed anyway they just don't because, supposedly, it's a hassle to figure out to who... It's tax-evasion and the larger the company the more accepted it is...
No, it is called the interstate commerce clause. You know, that clause of the constitution that usually causes people to pay more in taxes and deal with more government intrusion. It turns out that in this particular case it makes sales taxes on items purchased in other states illegal, which is why you don't have to pay tax on purchases across state lines.
Now, states do try to charge a "use tax" on items purchased in other states. This is of course flagrantly in violation of the constitution since it is just another name for a sales tax, and you have to pay it even if you never use the purchased item. However, courts have upheld it, and so you could potentially be punished for not paying this unconstitutional tax, assuming somebody manages to figure out how to bill you for it and survives the backlash.
I wouldn't be surprised if release policy had something to do with this. Suppose debian does this, and it means that they can add an extra 2k packages to the repository or whatever without much developer effort.
What is the quality of those 2k packages? Can Debian vouch for that? When one of those packages has a security problem, will a backport be made available, per what is usually Debian policy? Will they be able to stay on top of all of those packages?
They probably prefer to just repackage the gems that they want, and then control their quality knowing that if they had the resources to create the package they are more likely to have the resources to maintain them.
That is the problem when a distro brings in 3rd-party repositories - they may not agree on QA.
At about t+4ms, the strong forces came into existence. Before that, the math completely falls apart, and we have no idea what was happening.
I might add that this is all based on the assumption that we even know how everything works with the present forces of the universe. You know, those forces that can't account for 95% of the apparent mass-energy of the cosmos.
Of course, any pattern in the CMB could be significant, and it could be the result of pre-big-bang structure. Of course, where that structure originated is highly speculative. In fact, it could just be random chance. Since we only have one big bang to observe and only after the fact it is a bit difficult to nail something like this down.
All we can really do is perform tests in the present and try to extrapolate back. Both are a source of error.
Actually, the whole reason I don't like gems is because I DON'T manually manage my packages.
I just tell my package manager to update my packages, and it does. Well, except for anything I might have installed using something like gems, cpan, etc.
I also know every package in my distro is being maintained in accordance with the distro security policy. Maybe I'm using RHEL in which case I'm paying quite a bit for that assurance. That is, unless I'm using gems, cpan, etc.
Sure, no doubt gems has a bunch of features that might partially or even totally mititgate my concerns. I'm sure cpan does as well. I'm sure adobe's flash updater does too. But, I'd rather just stick with the package manager that comes with my distro. I don't need 14 tools on my system that all do the same thing.
If gems actually interfaced with the local package manager and did the "right thing" then it would be a whole lot more palatable.
I dunno. The problem with this attitude is that it leads to one big race for the bottom.
Whose fault is it that wood glue ended up in infant's formula in China? I'm sure the guy who bought the formula signed a contract. Never mind that he bought it for 1/10th the going rate, I'm sure that on paper it was called formula and not glue.
Due diligence isn't about reading the paperwork - it is about doing your job.
I am amazed that title insurance still exists. Well, not amazed - the answer is simple - lots of people make money selling it.
This is a problem that has a VERY simple solution. It was solved for cars ages ago.
The local government keeps a registry of all local properties (gee, they have to do that for taxes anyway). When property is bought or sold the registry is updated. When leins are placed on properties, or removed, the registry is updated.
Then, if you want to know if a house has clear title you just check the registry.
This is actually what happens today, except that under law the registry is not authoritative so it could be wrong. All you need to do is pass a law making the registry authoritative. If somebody sells you a house on the back of a napkin, and you pay 12 bricks of gold to buy it, then you just bought nothing, unless you executed the trade at the local courthouse or whatever the process is for updating the registry.
Now the courthouse only needs to protect one set of records, and not the entire history of the county from the time the settlers butchered the local indians.
There is no reason that this couldn't be standardized at the state level, either, thus avoiding the need for 25 counties in a single state to each implement their own botched solution.
However, this would put the 75 local title insurance companies out of business, and we can't have that...
So, are you suggesting that I buy a second phone and a corresponding plan, and then take the consolation that I can deduct about 35% of the cost of that from my taxes? Gee, what a bargain...
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Dude - a bunch of innocent germans were kidnapped in their home nation and whisked away to who knows where by a foreign power.
And, you're arguing over whether or not they were tortured... Oh, gee, I'm comforted to think that they might not have been in complete agony the whole time. Sounds like a nice trip - I wonder how you go about signing up for one of these unplanned vacations?
Whatever happened to habeas corpus and due process, let alone bail?
Yeah, looking at the page you linked to, I'm not too worried about storage densities hitting those limits anytime soon. Bekenstein's bound translates into something like 10^38 bits in a 1 gram container 1cm in radius. Maybe in a century of exponential storage growth we might start hitting those kinds of limits, but if we actually work out the laws of physics to a level such that we can store data at that density we'll probably have unlocked most of the secrets of the universe by then anyway...
Yup. Perhaps the shipping companies need to pay their employees more, or whatever.
I've seen lots of discussion elsewhere around "proper packaging." That seems like a bit of a cop-out when you consider their requirements for "proper packaging." Sure, there isn't much you can do to eliminate turbulence, so your package does need to handle a few Gs. However, it seems like the shipping industry is proposing that everybody spends an extra $75 on packaging so that they can save $5 in handling costs.
So we can move all those carbon emissions from serveral engines in cars to one big electric plant? How is this supposed to help the environment and be better, especially since it will require additional infrastructure?
Simple. A single large power plant is FAR more efficient than lots of gasoline engines. You don't even need regulation to make this happen - more efficiency means less wasted money on fuel and it is always worth the investment at large scale. If I told a consumer that they can have an extra 10 mpg for an extra $50k outlay, they would laugh, but a power plant operator would consider that a trifle of an investment.
Likewise, environmental controls are easier to implement on large plants. Sure, they will always put out more pollution on an absolute scale than a car, but 1000 cars definitely generate a lot more emissions than a power plant that charges 1000 electric cars.
I suspect the infrastructure problems will be relatively minor in comparison.
Hydrogen is the only answer, really.
Hydrogen requires its own infrastructure, and it doesn't exist freely in nature, so you need to run all those big electric plants you derided just to manufacture it in the first place.
Hydrogen is a way of distributing energy that is different from electric lines, and it has its own pros/cons. It is not in itself an energy source. I don't pretend to be able to compare hydrogen vs grid energy distribution - I can see the advantages and problems with both approaches.
Running base-load plants more and peak plants less is actually good for the grid - assuming the change happens slowly enough for the grid to keep up.
In the meantime, they can run peak plants at night.
Generally base-load plants are cheaper than peak plants to operate. Their problem is that generally they are only economical to run 24x7. So, right now they can't build a ton of them since half of the time they will be idle.
Charging cars at night creates more demand for base load, which makes the entire grid operate more efficiently.
Now, NIMBY is a real problem that stands in the way of ANY utility improvements. However, that really doesn't offer any unique problems for electric cars. The solution to NIMBY will be a simple one - once people start getting used to brownouts they'll be less likely to vote against power plant zoning plans...
Well, arguably the electric utilities are better regulated than most bandwidth providers. At least where I live the general sense is that rates are fair.
I do agree that this could just be warming up to the PUC for rate hikes.
Sure, an extra 15-30 amps at 220V is only an incremental change from the status quo. However, it is still an increase. The utility company can handle any house switching from gas to electric heat (to use your illustration). However, if a whole neighborhood with gas heat switched to electric heat in a single month, they might very well run into problems.
Consider that air conditioners, which also pull a similar amount of power, are considered a big problem for the grid today - to the point where solar power is becoming economical at the point of use.
However, I think that air-conditioners might actually point to the fact that electric vehicles won't be much of a problem after all. The grid clearly is already sized to handle air-conditioners, and electric vehicles pull their power during the night, when air conditioners are pulling less power. If anything this will help even out the baseline power requirements, allowing utilities to depend less on expensive peaker power generators.
Well, in theory since they charge for use and not "unlimited use" that is limited the utilities can just fix their infrastructure using existing rate structures.
This could be a crisis if everybody in a city buys an electric car in a six month period of time, but as long as adoption is gradual they should be able to handle it.
Also, electric rates are regulated. If utilities need to incur a cost to maintain service, they just petition the PUC, and they up the rates.
I agree. I can see how distribution before you reach the home might be taxed, since while most new homes get 200 amp service I doubt the infrastructure is designed for every home to pull all 200 amps at the same time.
Also, consider that most charging is likely to take place at night. That will have a huge leveling effect on the grid. Rather than going into panic mode the electric utilities should just work with auto-makers to build timers into their chargers (maybe give the car a charge up to 25-50% if it is really low right away, and then defer the rest of the charge until the middle of the night, or have a switch to select the charging mode). They should also educate electric car owners on rate plans that charge less for power consumed at night.
Agreed. Process is a tool. It can solve SOME problems. It is best applied in small doses in the place where it is most needed - kind of like medicine.
I actually am a big believer in Six Sigma - it works great! (Just ask the auto manufacturers.) I don't like corporate-level Six Sigma programs. These turn into exercises where EVERYTHING is a Sigma project. Usually they involve perverse incentives (rewards to individuals for creating projects - which is what you end up with lots of).
If you do something 10+ times a day, and your output is inconsistent, and the fact that it is inconsistent ACTUALLY CAUSES PROBLEMS, and those problems have a substantial cost, then chances are that Sigma is going to do you a lot of good.
If you do something 10 times a year, or nobody cares that sometimes you answer your phone on the 3rd ring vs the 4th, then it is just a waste of money.
Often Sigma INCREASES the cost of producing a particular work output. This is by design. If bad screws are causing your cars to fall apart then buying good screws will cost you more, but that is fine since nobody wants to buy cars that fall apart. The goal of Sigma is to decrease the total cost, by not having to throw out half of the items you produce.
Too often Sigma is applied to one step in a whole process with the goal of making that one step cheaper. Usually the time invested in doing this ends of costing more than the resulting savings, and usually the overall process suffers because cutting corners on one step often leads to bigger problems downstream.
Sigma/CMMI/etc are about quality - not cost. If done right they will often increase your process cost. Their benefit comes in the output. However, you have to ask the question first "do I need this?" If your output isn't that bad currently, then you're solving a problem that doesn't exist.
Back in the 1980s, during the height of the cold war when the USSR was the biggest threat anybody in the US or Western Europe (or Eastern Europe for that matter) faced, the KGB bought intelligence wholesale. From the busts that were made they didn't even have to pay all that much for it, certainly not in comparison to the value of the data.
Consider who leaked this stuff to wikileaks - it wasn't the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. It was some fairly low-level officer in the military. There are hundreds of thousands of people like this that have access to stuff that is classified. Do you think that an outfit the size of China/etc won't be able to find somebody to bribe?
No doubt the motives of those who leak to wikileaks are going to be different than those leaking stuff to China. However, if you need to disseminate secrets THAT widely it is very hard to keep them secret, unless there is some real sense of urgency. Troops hiding in the middle of some warzone have incentive to keep their location secret. Some guy manning a supply depot supporting a 5-year counter-insurgency isn't going to have the same sense of duty.
I do agree with your arguments. Additionally, if you figure that we're the descendants of the survivors of that plague it stands to reason that we'd have a larger level of genetic resistance against it as well. Who can say for sure though...
True enough, it is very unlikely that anything bad would have happened to the box. However, consider that if something bad DID happen, what the consequences would be.
Talk about a black swan...
Based on the wording on the notice, if this was actually done by the government it was done under seizure laws.
Seizure is a legal principle where no human being is accused of a crime. Instead, the government files a complaint against the property itself, and then finds it guilty of crime. The constitution only grants human rights to humans, so the theory is that all those constitutional protections don't apply.
The fact that the property actually belongs to a human being isn't of great concern to the courts, apparently.
Of course, this is nothing more than an end-run around due process. If somebody tried to do this back in the 1780s there would have been lots of tar and feathers involved.
I was reading an article in a journal (Science I think?) back in the 90s, about the 1918 flu virus. The researches drew some conclusions about the old virus by applying more modern techniques, including sequencing. They obtained the virus from US military tissue samples (apparently the US military preserved tissue samples from dead soldiers back then - in paraffin I think).
They mentioned that they shipped the samples by FedEx. So, samples of tissue containing a plague that killed a substantial portion of the human race were in some box on the back of a truck right next to somebody's toner cartridge delivery and some legal records...
Just because Amazon doesn't COLLECT sales tax doesn't mean you do not have to pay it.
Well, that depends on your definition of "have to."
The state says that you have to pay it, by state law. The US constitution says that the state isn't allowed to collect this tax from you. The federal courts have generally allowed them to collect it anyway. and thus the law can still be enforced.
So, the bottom line is that if you don't pay it, and if the state finds out and takes you to court, then you might end up being fined. Whether this is "right" or "wrong" depends on your definitions of those terms. In practice it is almost completely unenforceable, at least not until states can get their hands on sales records. If that happens, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a rise in mailbox rentals. :)
perhaps you could wake up to the fact that you are one country and have uniform tax laws
Actually, at least on paper the US is governed federally, as opposed to the unitary system of government used in most of Europe. The difference is significant.
In most European nations local governments are a matter of convenience, and they are completely subject to the centralized government. The national parliament could dissolve any local assembly with a vote, and as a result tax policy tends to be centralized.
In the US states are semi-sovereign entities. The national government does not generally have the power to override state law, except where the constitutional rights of an individual are infringed, or except as enumerated under the constitution. One of these enumerations is that only the Federal government can regulate interstate commerce. The states are individually unitary governments - any level of government below the state exists at the state's convenience. This is why you sometimes hear about local school boards or city governments being taken over by the state if they are mismanaged. The states cannot be taken over in this manner.
Now, over time the lines have gotten blurred quite a bit by the general expansion of federal power.
The big issue in the US is that tax policy has gotten out-of-hand and most people do not perceive that their taxes are spent in a useful way. So, nobody wants to have uniform tax laws since they view new tax laws as being likely to just result in everybody paying more. Now, compared to most Europeans the average American pays fairly little tax. However, the average American doesn't get free healthcare, free college-level education, very generous unemployment benefits, modern public transit, or half of the other social programs that the average European receives for their taxes. They aren't likely to get them either, judging by what came of national healthcare...
It has to be payed anyway they just don't because, supposedly, it's a hassle to figure out to who... It's tax-evasion and the larger the company the more accepted it is...
No, it is called the interstate commerce clause. You know, that clause of the constitution that usually causes people to pay more in taxes and deal with more government intrusion. It turns out that in this particular case it makes sales taxes on items purchased in other states illegal, which is why you don't have to pay tax on purchases across state lines.
Now, states do try to charge a "use tax" on items purchased in other states. This is of course flagrantly in violation of the constitution since it is just another name for a sales tax, and you have to pay it even if you never use the purchased item. However, courts have upheld it, and so you could potentially be punished for not paying this unconstitutional tax, assuming somebody manages to figure out how to bill you for it and survives the backlash.
I wouldn't be surprised if release policy had something to do with this. Suppose debian does this, and it means that they can add an extra 2k packages to the repository or whatever without much developer effort.
What is the quality of those 2k packages? Can Debian vouch for that? When one of those packages has a security problem, will a backport be made available, per what is usually Debian policy? Will they be able to stay on top of all of those packages?
They probably prefer to just repackage the gems that they want, and then control their quality knowing that if they had the resources to create the package they are more likely to have the resources to maintain them.
That is the problem when a distro brings in 3rd-party repositories - they may not agree on QA.
At about t+4ms, the strong forces came into existence. Before that, the math completely falls apart, and we have no idea what was happening.
I might add that this is all based on the assumption that we even know how everything works with the present forces of the universe. You know, those forces that can't account for 95% of the apparent mass-energy of the cosmos.
Of course, any pattern in the CMB could be significant, and it could be the result of pre-big-bang structure. Of course, where that structure originated is highly speculative. In fact, it could just be random chance. Since we only have one big bang to observe and only after the fact it is a bit difficult to nail something like this down.
All we can really do is perform tests in the present and try to extrapolate back. Both are a source of error.
Actually, the whole reason I don't like gems is because I DON'T manually manage my packages.
I just tell my package manager to update my packages, and it does. Well, except for anything I might have installed using something like gems, cpan, etc.
I also know every package in my distro is being maintained in accordance with the distro security policy. Maybe I'm using RHEL in which case I'm paying quite a bit for that assurance. That is, unless I'm using gems, cpan, etc.
Sure, no doubt gems has a bunch of features that might partially or even totally mititgate my concerns. I'm sure cpan does as well. I'm sure adobe's flash updater does too. But, I'd rather just stick with the package manager that comes with my distro. I don't need 14 tools on my system that all do the same thing.
If gems actually interfaced with the local package manager and did the "right thing" then it would be a whole lot more palatable.
What's that in burning libraries of congress? Come on - let's use normal units here!
I dunno. The problem with this attitude is that it leads to one big race for the bottom.
Whose fault is it that wood glue ended up in infant's formula in China? I'm sure the guy who bought the formula signed a contract. Never mind that he bought it for 1/10th the going rate, I'm sure that on paper it was called formula and not glue.
Due diligence isn't about reading the paperwork - it is about doing your job.
I am amazed that title insurance still exists. Well, not amazed - the answer is simple - lots of people make money selling it.
This is a problem that has a VERY simple solution. It was solved for cars ages ago.
The local government keeps a registry of all local properties (gee, they have to do that for taxes anyway). When property is bought or sold the registry is updated. When leins are placed on properties, or removed, the registry is updated.
Then, if you want to know if a house has clear title you just check the registry.
This is actually what happens today, except that under law the registry is not authoritative so it could be wrong. All you need to do is pass a law making the registry authoritative. If somebody sells you a house on the back of a napkin, and you pay 12 bricks of gold to buy it, then you just bought nothing, unless you executed the trade at the local courthouse or whatever the process is for updating the registry.
Now the courthouse only needs to protect one set of records, and not the entire history of the county from the time the settlers butchered the local indians.
There is no reason that this couldn't be standardized at the state level, either, thus avoiding the need for 25 counties in a single state to each implement their own botched solution.
However, this would put the 75 local title insurance companies out of business, and we can't have that...
Or, they own one of the android phones that fall into the 50% or so that don't run android v2.2.
If you open imap access, then of course that is possible as well.
So, are you suggesting that I buy a second phone and a corresponding plan, and then take the consolation that I can deduct about 35% of the cost of that from my taxes? Gee, what a bargain...