For the record, I think credentials probably do matter, and that they probably SHOULD matter in a lot of cases. But:
Anyway, if a person's credentials don't matter, then why not let everyone be an admin?
Because you morphed the argument. The proper extension to "credentials don't matter" is "why not let anyone be an admin?" (More specifically, anybody who doesn't have some other problems that would eliminate them.) Too many cooks and all that jazz. I'll leave it up to others to debate whether that is actually how it works.
It takes a 3/2 vote from both houses to override a presidential veto, not 99-0.
That would be 2/3. And 99-0 is just a bit over two-thirds, wouldn't you say? Not many presidents are going to veto a bill if they know their veto is going to be overturned; it weakens them.
But the grandparent didn't say anything about a veto. He commented on the question, "can you understand why people might hope a different party would tend to draft different bills?" When a bill passes 99-0 in the Senate, it has overwhelming support from BOTH parties.
Please try to confine yourself to subjects you are knowledgeable on.
What I assume is a typo aside, perhaps you should take your own advice. You seem to have completely missed the point and attempted to disparage the GP for it.
And as we all know, public statements are legally binding oral--
--wait, no they're not.
Maybe he's serious and hated DRM all along; maybe he's serious and just thinks iTunes is big enough that they don't need it anymore. Maybe he's not serious at all, and is just try to score PR points by espousing a position he either doesn't care about or doesn't think will ever come about. Or maybe he's saying one thing in public and another in private in an attempt to ensure that no matter which way things ultimately break, Apple is positioned on the winning side.
Frankly, it matters very little right now. I want to see action. Then not only will we be able to take a guess on which of those possibilities is the truth (except for the latter I guess), but we'll see if the position made a difference at all.
or the fear of being seen as a sympathizer is so great that nobody risks talking about it - not even the die-hard civil libertarians.
That's part of it, but the other side of that same coin is that even if you do speak out against these sort of laws, you're ignored.
The problem is that the argument on issues like this are not rational, they are emotional. Regardless of how many good points one can mention against these sorts of bills, the opposition just goes, "but THE CHILDREN!!" And that's it. You've been completely blown off without ever really being heard; sometimes it's hard to understand why it's worth wasting your breath on especially, as you say, with the additional fear that you could be branded with them and worse than just ignored.
On top of that, it's basically political suicide for the people who actually vote of these issues to vote against them. It's dangerous. Even if your intentions are completely related to opposing a poorly-written law, you might never get the chance to tell your side. All it takes is for one person in the other party to go, "he wants to let child molesters run free!!" and the news to repeat that a few times and there is big trouble.
For the record, the PROTECT Act passed 84-0 in the Senate. After the House agreed and the two voted on the final language, it passed 400-25 in the House and 98-0 in the Senate.
Put it all together and it just doesn't seem worth it.
You're right that the kid is probably guilty of violating some of the US hacking-related laws, but:
You can't spy on everyone possible where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy to see if they might be doing something illegal. You need a search warrant when American citizens are involved.
That is not entirely true. The police need a search warrant. I don't need a search warrant to, say, leaf through your drawers if you invite me inside for a drink.
The real question, and one somebody much more knowledgable in the area that I will have to answer, is whether if I found something while I was leafing through your papers, then told the police, whether they could use that evidence. Or more appropriately to this scenario, maybe I stole your papers out of your drawer and gave them to the cops.
The act of spying itself, private citizen to private citizen, is not necessarily a violation of the law. (Voyeurism, breaking and entering, unlawful entry... these sorts of things may apply, but they aren't the same thing.)
IQ scores are a standard distribution with a standard deviation of 10 and a mean of 100. Therefore,
IQs +/- 1 standard deviation from the mean, that is, 90-110, account for approximately 68% of all scores.
The 80-120 range will account for roughly 95% of the scores.
And 70-130 will include over 99%.
Obviously, an IQ of 180 is astoundingly high. An IQ of 55-60 is, I believe, in the mentally retarded range. Since there's not really a good way to quantify "half as smart" and "twice as smart," you could consider that accurate if you wanted, I suppose. Personally, when I think of somebody who is "half as smart as average," I don't think it's that bad.
* mild mental disability: IQ 50-55 to 70; children require mild support; formally called "Educable Mentally Retarded".
* moderate disability: IQ 35-40 to 50-55; children require moderate supervision and assistance; formally called "Trainable Mentally Retarded".
* severe mental disability: IQ 20-25 to 35-40; can be taught basic life skills and simple tasks with supervision.
* profound mental disability: IQ below 20-25; usually caused by a neurological condition; require constant care.
There are also a bunch of debates as to bias and whether IQs really measure anything worthwhile which I'm sure you can find on the same Wikipedia page if you're interested.
Most of the legislators at the state level are those who aren't even smart enough to make it into the US Congress
Or they are people who actually want to impact lives, and realize that the majority of governing in general is not done at the federal level.
Or want to be involved in government, but don't want to get into the high-profile grind of federal office where they will spend most of their time raising money to get themselves re-elected.
Or maybe want to stay near home and impact the communities where they live, instead of spending all their time trying to attach pork-barrel amendments in the hopes that some of that money might trickle down to their constituents.
Or, hell, if you want to assume that the only reason that people get involved in local politics is because they can't make it in federal politics, maybe getting experience and a nice attachment to a resume for when they do try to move on. Despite being "too stupid" for federal office by virtue of serving in state office, I would be willing to bet nearly all congressmen on the federal level served somewhere at a state level first.
But no. I suppose your opinion is what passes for insightful around here.
Different areas of laws are being hopelessly mixed and, frankly, misrepresented by your post.
First of all, I didn't read the article, but the first thing you're doing is mixing the concept of a jury and a grand jury. They are vastly different.
A grand jury decides whether or not there is enough evidence to bring charges. There is no defense team at a grand jury, unless you consider the lawyers for people who are subpoenaed to be "defense." The prosecutor can show whatever he wants, and the worst that a grand jury can do is say "okay, go ahead and have a trial."
Once that happens, the case goes to court and a (petit) jury. This is where the defense comes in, and they have full access to all evidence in advance in order to prepare their case. Then and only then would it be up to a judge to determine whether parts of the tape, all of the tape or none of the tape should be shown to the jurors.
None of this relates to complying with a subpoena. There are only two possibilities: The first, that the tape incriminates Josh himself, and that he is not submitting it under the Fifth Amendment. That does not seem to be the case. The other possibility is that he turns over the tape to comply. There is no middle ground. He doesn't get to attach conditions to his complying with a court order. That's not how the legal system works. As such, his refusal should absolutely land him in jail until he complies.
Your own speculation as to what the tape may show is frankly disingenuous at best, since you have absolutely no idea what is on the tape. It's also irrelevant. You comply with a subpoena or you go to jail. If the tape truly does show police brutality, that will undoubtedly come out at the trial.
You're right that our legal system is adversarial, but not at the grand jury stage. I also fail to see what that has to do with anything in this case. When it gets to that point, they will have equal access to evidence and the judge will decide what comes out and what does not. What's the problem here?
This tax is going to be added upon most sales as 1% extra. Where is representation?
Depending on the state constitution of the state in question, local government (those under the state level) may not even have the legal right to exist and collect taxes. That said, higher law almost always trumps lower law. Where is your representation? In Indianapolis.
This is our land, yet we have no representation.
Erm -- your governor was elected, was he not? There is your representation. Depending on your state laws and constitution (passed by your state representatives--more representation), there may or may not be additional legislative or judicial recourse to overturn a decision like this.
You seem to be under the belief that you live in a democracy. You do not. If you want to, there are a handful of them around the world, but criticizing the US government for not being what it was never intended to be is a bit silly.
The US is a Republic. We elect people who make decisions. We don't get to be in on every one. The fact that it was the state legislature or governor and not Bob the Mayor of Smalltown who made a decision doesn't mean you weren't represented.
Out of curiosity, how did your own state lawmakers (the ones you are directly involved in electing) vote on the tax measure? If they didn't vote the way you believe, what are you going to do about it?
Incidentally, none of your points address the grandparent's point about honesty which you quoted. Government doing things that you don't like does not make it dishonest.
Across our nation, we have the highest incarceration rates in the world. Our percent felon rate even exceeds what Russia has. In our country, when you are/have been a felon, you do not qualify to vote for the rest of your life. Add this to the ever-creeping list of felonies and we have untold millions of people who are disenfranchised.
All* of this is true, and all of it is, in my mind, totally reprehensible. But at the same time, I'm a believer that we get the government we deserve. (I live in Illinois, by the way, but it's pretty much the same everywhere.) We get these leaders because we elect these leaders. Often repeatedly. At a federal level, there are definitely laws which favor the two-party system. As you drill down to more local levels, we have these problems because we choose to. Most governing is done locally, even though very few people--even among the small percentage who bother to vote EVER--are actively interested or involved in local politics.
(*The part that is not entirely true: Laws about who can and can not vote are made at a state level. There are a handful of states in which felons can vote, though in most they can not.)
Did you know that here, a corporation can take your land if 1: they like it a lot 2: get approval from the local planning board 3: declare your house "uninhabitable" ?
The legal ability to do this really isn't an issue of corruption. The Supreme Court decided a matter of law. Their current interpretation of the Constitution is that economic development is for the public good, and therefore fits the criteria for the long-established power of eminent domain to apply.
For what it's worth, the reaction from Congress to the decision was bitterly opposed; I believe they even passed some legislation that withheld federal money to governments who did this sort of thing. That's how it should be. The USSC decided what the law said currently. If we want to change it, that's the job of Congress.
There are lots of things that are wrong in America, but as I said before, we probably deserve them. If we elect asshats, we have to expect to live with asshat decisions. It is one of the major failings of a Republic, but until we come up with something better it's what we've got.
The president has less of a chance of increasing the odds of gun control legislation passing than a single congressman does. A congressman can introduce a bill, and can vote on it. All the president can do is sign it into law once both houses have passed it.
What you say is somewhat true, but also a bit naive.
First of all, if a president--especially a popular president--makes something an issue, you can be 99.99% sure that he's going to get a number of sponsors for any sort of legislation that he wants. The political reality is that a president who is so vastly different from every single member of Congress that he wouldn't be able to find a single person to introduce a bill for him, simply would not be elected.
Secondly, a president wields veto power over legislation. That means that he essentially holds the vote of 16 Senators and 72 or so Representatives if he decides to "vote" against a measure. Therefore, your statement that "[t]he president has less of a chance of increasing the odds of gun control legislation passing" is true only if you disregard his ability to PREVENT gun control legislation from being law. His mere willingness to sign such legislation increases the odds of it being law, particularly in a closely-divided Congress such as we have had lately. In the case of Obama, and assuming the Democratic majority holds, he may be very close to having what he needs for gun control legislation without changing a single mind. (It depends on how many of these moderate Democrats elected last election would be pro gun-control, and of course how many on either side would break from their ranks.)
None of that includes the presidents' power as granted by his popularity. Particularly in the House, a strong president can gain support for legislation simply by being so strong. He can't pass a law himself, but he CERTAINLY can make things more or less likely to pass.
otherwise it should be pretty straight forward if it shows it in the report on the fire.
Not necessarily. In issues of civil tort, liability can be proportioned among different parties. For example, if somebody dashed into the street to get a ball and was hit by a car driven by a man who was busy tuning his radio at the time, they might decide that the accident was 60% the driver's fault and 40% the victim's.
In this case, if I am not mistaken, these batteries were recalled months ago. A good lawyer--and you can bet a company like Dell will have several--is going to argue that there comes a point where they have acted responsibly and issues like this are entirely in the hands of the consumers. I think if we're being fair to Sony/Dell--hard around here, I know!--we would agree that that is true. We might not agree on what amount of time has to pass before that happens, but... well, that would be for a jury to decide.
This has two very real implications for this homeowner:
1. Even if he wins his case, he may not receive enough money to replace his home (and presumably possessions) to a state similar to what they were before.
2. The insurance company may not want to pursue legal action. In fact, they may want to choose to screw the consumer. Win a lawsuit or pay the policy, either way the insurance company would pay out--the third option is to basically agree with what the Dell lawyer is bound to say, that the homeowner was largely at fault, and see how much they can wiggle out of.
I DO think he would win a fair deal of money if he sued, but it's not quite as simple as "bad battery = fire = $$$."
They're making is very clear that they are achieving the kind of critical mass where they will act with impunity.
Please. They are doing no such thing. They're not talking about randomly disabling peoples' operating systems or something. This is about a situation where somebody agrees to get a free (or, perhaps largely discounted) computer in exchange for watching ads. The catch is that they can't just say "oh, sure!" and laugh their asses off while they don't watch squat, because of the system Microsoft has where the computer itself can tell if you're watching.
Personally, I would never agree to such nonsense with my machine -- but if I DID, somehow I think I lose the right to bitch about how evil Microsoft is for giving me my free computer and expecting something in return. If you agree to a deal, even a bad deal, I do not see how it is evil for the other party to expect you to live up to your bargain. Call me when Microsoft's actions (in this department!) are illegal and thus the contract void and we'll have a case. Then again, "having a case" probably just means they take the computer back anyway.
So how long before this kind of thinking migrates to television?
It would suck pretty bad, but we're supposed to be largely pro free-market here, right? If that's what cable operators do, we should vote with our dollars and give our business to others. Other alternatives to cable (satellite, IPTV soon, etc) are out there. If there is a legal/monopolistic issue to be solved, that's what the courts are for.
Microsoft does plenty of evil stuff, but I don't see how forcing you to abide by terms you have agreed to is one of them.
Yes, because making suicide illegal has really cut down on that problem.
Dunno if your comment was meant to be funny or not, but...
Making suicide illegal has nothing to do with reducing suicides. It's not intended to.
The fact is that most of the time a successful suicide follows a number of botched attempts first. If suicides are illegal, they can take the person after the botched attempts and force them into counseling or whatever they think might help. If they're legal, you can't force them to get help. You just have to hope they do or wait to see if they get better at the whole suicide thing the second time around.
Which way is the better way, eh, you decide for yourself.
mainly due, I think, to Walmart's caving in to the Studios demands (same pricing as DVDs).
I read an article (link) that seemed to indicate the opposite:
Apple's pricing has also caused scuffles between studios and major retailers, including Wal-Mart and Target Corp. The retailers don't want studios to sell digital copies of films cheaper than the wholesale price of physical DVDs.
If you think about it, this makes sense. Everything being equal, Wal-Mart would much rather you come into its store and walk out with a physical DVD--and, they hope, a couple of armfuls of other merchandise--than make a few clicks of your mouse from your chair at home and buy only the video.
At the same time, I think they understand that the prices won't stay equal forever. While they wait, they get to establish themselves as leaders in the market for downloadable content.
Personally, I'm happy if the data they're aggregating delivers messages such as "80% of our viewers think your 'Head-On! Apply Directly To Your Forehead' pain reliever ads are the broadcast equivalent of gerbil vomit"
Ironically, that is approximately what "Head-On!" is made of...
Gerbil vomit would be at least as effective in treating headaches as the ball of wax that crap is, anyway.
I generally use mail as a metaphor for packets, but I suppose it works as a metaphor for the whole process.
A message is addressed and sent to somebody, who opens it up and reads it, then reacts to whatever it says--possibly by writing their own letter and sending it to the original person. The difference being, of course, that the messages are sent over a wire at extremely fast speeds rather than put into a post office box. You could probably extend the analogy to include "mail sorting machines" along the way for routers/switches, but it might be more than they need (or want) to know.
Since I'm sure people understand the mail system at least at a high level, they should understand the metaphor. If they want to know in more detail than that, chances are you should abandon metaphors entirely and just explain the process for real.
The really weird thing is that neither side of the political spectrum dare oppose the whole "sex offender" legal agenda thing. Its a bit like global warming. Groupthink.
I don't think it's really a matter of group think. Some of it is, of course, and some more of it is the fact that you can score cheap political points by saying "let's torture all sex offenders to death, huzzah!"
The problem is you, and me. It's the public. If a politican said something like, "I think we should re-think our sex offender laws," can you imagine what would happen? Pundits, talk show hosts and everybody in the opposing party would instantly paint them in a way that basically amounts to "they have nothing against somebody raping your child." It doesn't matter that that is not what he said. It doesn't matter that he might have been talking about cases like two 16 year olds who videotaped themselves having sex being brought up on child pornography charges or something similarly absurd, rather than legitimate sexual predators. Once he's hung with that label, he's in deep trouble.
"Senator Jones doesn't care about your children. He proposed a re-examination of the laws that put child sex offenders behind bars and require you to be notified if one moves in next door. Vote for Bob. He knows exactly where he stands on sexual predators. (Paid for by Parents Who Love And Protect Their Children.)"
And it would work. Partially because people get hysterical whenever they hear the words "sex offender." Partially because people are so horribly uninformed that if they saw an ad like that, they wouldn't bother to see what the other side of the story was--they'd just figure their Senator needed a new job. Partially because it's good television to skewer the Senator by bringing his most rabid opponents in with his official spokesperson to give "fair and balanced" coverage--conflict sells, and always has.
There are lot of places where blame can be placed, but it ultimately has to be placed right at the feet of the voters. Voters who don't vote at all. Voters who don't care to see two sides of the issues. All of the things I mentioned are horrible, and they come from different sources--tv networks, politicians, political action groups, etc--but the bottom line is if it didn't work, it wouldn't be done.
We, as a collective voting body, don't allow free thought. More importantly, we don't allow complex opinions. Your opinion may not be any more complex than you can fully explain in a 10 second sound bite. This is, very unfortunately, the attention span of the average American voter as it relates to the people who will be representing them in government.
As sad as it is for me to say so, when so many people act like that, we deserve the politicians we get. We deserve the stupid laws we get.
You Americans are so worried about being safe. Why not just not drive tired and pay attention to driving?"
Because you don't always have that luxury. Tell your friend that there are many cases where you can be tired and be almost forced to drive anyway. What if you had trouble sleeping the night before? Or your baby kept crying and kept you awake? What if you were sick but had to get somewhere (say, to the doctor or to work)? You'll note that all of those examples are essentially out of the driver's control. Many more would be added if you permit cases where something the driver did before but could have avoided caused the fatigue--like partying all night (for the younger crowd) or anything along those lines.
Some people will claim that missing a day of work and potentially getting fired if you don't show up is a small price to pay for not dying. They're not wrong, if you know you're going to die--but you don't. It's a calculated risk; say, 50% chance of getting fired versus, what, 1% chance of dying because you drove tired? Probably significantly less than that, in fact. Some fairly cheap rumble strips on the sides of the road to save a few lives isn't an unreasonable thing to add.
Or am I right in believing that there are some educators out there that believe government-funded schools shouldn't stop students from wasting their bandwidth?
It depends on where we are talking about. For children--that is, definitely K-8 and probably even all the way through high school--it should be the school's prerogative as to what they filter or not. In other words, they should absolutely have the right to determine what "wasting their bandwidth" means.
The example you give, being in a university, is a different animal. The students are adults, and they paid as much money as you did to be attending classes there. In other words, they have exactly as much right to the machines and the bandwidth as you do, and while you're free to complain and call their uses a waste--hell, I might even agree with you--neither you nor the school should have a right to curb that use.
Public libraries I'm a little more torn on, but my gut says that since they're supported by taxes that they should be equally unencumbered, regardless of whether the users are adults or not.
I'm sympathetic to your need to use the computer for actual university-related work, I just don't think it gives you or the IT staff any right to impose usage restrictions. "Excuse me, I really need to use a computer to write a paper" should be the approach.
I think that is true only of people who really haven't seen HD. Even my mom, who watches approximately no TV on average, is stunned by HD quality and will sit in my brother's room watching something like Discovery HD for 60-90 minutes. That's pretty much unheard of for her in most cases.
She wants an HD TV. She just can't justify the cost right now because, in her words, "there's nothing wrong with our TV." When either the costs come down a bit more or something goes flaky with the TV, she's going to be in the HD world. And she's probably going to beat me there!
How can they claim with a straight face that the *damages* are about 100 times greater than the size of the industry being damaged?
They're not claiming that at all. $150,000 wasn't a random number, nor was the fact that it was called "the maximum" in the article summary just word choice. In fact, anybody at all familiar with copyright law--even just the little trickles that make it through on sites like this--will have their ears twitch in recognition at hearing the number.
$150,000 is the maximum allowed statutory damages according to US copyright law. It has nothing to do with how much their losses were.
Further, realize that damages come in two parts: compensatory (what you actually lost) and punitive (punishment for the act). Punitive damages are almost always substantially higher than compensatory damages in situations like this. Even if they only claimed $11 million punitive damages ($1/download, the iTunes price), the law says they're perfectly free to claim the other $1.649+ trillion.
Will they get that much (if they get anything)? Almost certainly not, but that doesn't stop them from asking for it.
Does anyone else question why we are taking user interface advice from a guy whose website looks like it was designed in notepad?
As a disclaimer, I found most of the points in the article to be exceptionally boring. A fair deal of it is true, but some of it--like complaining that font sizes are too big--seem like a stretch to fill a Top 10 list rather than a legitimate complaint.
As to your question: No, because the issue is usability, not aesthetics. Sometimes really pretty things help you get things done; often times they do not. His article was exceptionally easy to read. The navigation definitely stood out. It was ugly, in my opinion, but it was definitely usable.
If you want to nit pick his usability, a quick glance over his markup show the lack of use of things such as access keys, which is a usability issue for blind users. Also things like useless ALT tags, etc.
I find it ironic how the author derides gestural input while Slashdot has stories almost every day about how great that interface has worked for the Wii.
Well, he doesn't deride gestural input unless you're taking some liberties with assumptions. What he says is that "it is very tiring to keep your arms in the air while using a computer." He also says that 2D is better than 3D in most cases, but also explicitly points out that 3D interfaces have their places. Video games would seem like a fair place to use them.
For one thing, you're not necessarily keeping your arms up. If you're having, say, a sword fight, you may keep your arms up; bowling doesn't require that. Tennis requires it a little bit (serves) and after that it can be anything from an underhand to a backhand motion. Plus, the word "requires" is a bit much since it says explicitly that exaggerated movements aren't really necessary. Most people also are probably not playing video games for 8 hours (nearly straight) every day such as they would be doing at work.
Slashdot Mirror
If that is true, and it is as easy as you make it seem, then why DON'T THEY JUST DO IT?
"Gee, we can easily replace the part of our OS that makes everybody hate us... but nah."
For the record, I think credentials probably do matter, and that they probably SHOULD matter in a lot of cases. But:
Because you morphed the argument. The proper extension to "credentials don't matter" is "why not let anyone be an admin?" (More specifically, anybody who doesn't have some other problems that would eliminate them.) Too many cooks and all that jazz. I'll leave it up to others to debate whether that is actually how it works.
That would be 2/3. And 99-0 is just a bit over two-thirds, wouldn't you say? Not many presidents are going to veto a bill if they know their veto is going to be overturned; it weakens them.
But the grandparent didn't say anything about a veto. He commented on the question, "can you understand why people might hope a different party would tend to draft different bills?" When a bill passes 99-0 in the Senate, it has overwhelming support from BOTH parties.
What I assume is a typo aside, perhaps you should take your own advice. You seem to have completely missed the point and attempted to disparage the GP for it.
And as we all know, public statements are legally binding oral--
--wait, no they're not.
Maybe he's serious and hated DRM all along; maybe he's serious and just thinks iTunes is big enough that they don't need it anymore. Maybe he's not serious at all, and is just try to score PR points by espousing a position he either doesn't care about or doesn't think will ever come about. Or maybe he's saying one thing in public and another in private in an attempt to ensure that no matter which way things ultimately break, Apple is positioned on the winning side.
Frankly, it matters very little right now. I want to see action. Then not only will we be able to take a guess on which of those possibilities is the truth (except for the latter I guess), but we'll see if the position made a difference at all.
That's part of it, but the other side of that same coin is that even if you do speak out against these sort of laws, you're ignored.
The problem is that the argument on issues like this are not rational, they are emotional. Regardless of how many good points one can mention against these sorts of bills, the opposition just goes, "but THE CHILDREN!!" And that's it. You've been completely blown off without ever really being heard; sometimes it's hard to understand why it's worth wasting your breath on especially, as you say, with the additional fear that you could be branded with them and worse than just ignored.
On top of that, it's basically political suicide for the people who actually vote of these issues to vote against them. It's dangerous. Even if your intentions are completely related to opposing a poorly-written law, you might never get the chance to tell your side. All it takes is for one person in the other party to go, "he wants to let child molesters run free!!" and the news to repeat that a few times and there is big trouble.
For the record, the PROTECT Act passed 84-0 in the Senate. After the House agreed and the two voted on the final language, it passed 400-25 in the House and 98-0 in the Senate.
Put it all together and it just doesn't seem worth it.
You're right that the kid is probably guilty of violating some of the US hacking-related laws, but:
That is not entirely true. The police need a search warrant. I don't need a search warrant to, say, leaf through your drawers if you invite me inside for a drink.
The real question, and one somebody much more knowledgable in the area that I will have to answer, is whether if I found something while I was leafing through your papers, then told the police, whether they could use that evidence. Or more appropriately to this scenario, maybe I stole your papers out of your drawer and gave them to the cops.
The act of spying itself, private citizen to private citizen, is not necessarily a violation of the law. (Voyeurism, breaking and entering, unlawful entry... these sorts of things may apply, but they aren't the same thing.)
IQ scores are a standard distribution with a standard deviation of 10 and a mean of 100. Therefore,
IQs +/- 1 standard deviation from the mean, that is, 90-110, account for approximately 68% of all scores.
The 80-120 range will account for roughly 95% of the scores.
And 70-130 will include over 99%.
Obviously, an IQ of 180 is astoundingly high. An IQ of 55-60 is, I believe, in the mentally retarded range. Since there's not really a good way to quantify "half as smart" and "twice as smart," you could consider that accurate if you wanted, I suppose. Personally, when I think of somebody who is "half as smart as average," I don't think it's that bad.
From Wikipedia:
* mild mental disability: IQ 50-55 to 70; children require mild support; formally called "Educable Mentally Retarded".
* moderate disability: IQ 35-40 to 50-55; children require moderate supervision and assistance; formally called "Trainable Mentally Retarded".
* severe mental disability: IQ 20-25 to 35-40; can be taught basic life skills and simple tasks with supervision.
* profound mental disability: IQ below 20-25; usually caused by a neurological condition; require constant care.
There are also a bunch of debates as to bias and whether IQs really measure anything worthwhile which I'm sure you can find on the same Wikipedia page if you're interested.
No, you just wish they were.
Or they are people who actually want to impact lives, and realize that the majority of governing in general is not done at the federal level.
Or want to be involved in government, but don't want to get into the high-profile grind of federal office where they will spend most of their time raising money to get themselves re-elected.
Or maybe want to stay near home and impact the communities where they live, instead of spending all their time trying to attach pork-barrel amendments in the hopes that some of that money might trickle down to their constituents.
Or, hell, if you want to assume that the only reason that people get involved in local politics is because they can't make it in federal politics, maybe getting experience and a nice attachment to a resume for when they do try to move on. Despite being "too stupid" for federal office by virtue of serving in state office, I would be willing to bet nearly all congressmen on the federal level served somewhere at a state level first.
But no. I suppose your opinion is what passes for insightful around here.
Different areas of laws are being hopelessly mixed and, frankly, misrepresented by your post.
First of all, I didn't read the article, but the first thing you're doing is mixing the concept of a jury and a grand jury. They are vastly different.
A grand jury decides whether or not there is enough evidence to bring charges. There is no defense team at a grand jury, unless you consider the lawyers for people who are subpoenaed to be "defense." The prosecutor can show whatever he wants, and the worst that a grand jury can do is say "okay, go ahead and have a trial."
Once that happens, the case goes to court and a (petit) jury. This is where the defense comes in, and they have full access to all evidence in advance in order to prepare their case. Then and only then would it be up to a judge to determine whether parts of the tape, all of the tape or none of the tape should be shown to the jurors.
None of this relates to complying with a subpoena. There are only two possibilities: The first, that the tape incriminates Josh himself, and that he is not submitting it under the Fifth Amendment. That does not seem to be the case. The other possibility is that he turns over the tape to comply. There is no middle ground. He doesn't get to attach conditions to his complying with a court order. That's not how the legal system works. As such, his refusal should absolutely land him in jail until he complies.
Your own speculation as to what the tape may show is frankly disingenuous at best, since you have absolutely no idea what is on the tape. It's also irrelevant. You comply with a subpoena or you go to jail. If the tape truly does show police brutality, that will undoubtedly come out at the trial.
You're right that our legal system is adversarial, but not at the grand jury stage. I also fail to see what that has to do with anything in this case. When it gets to that point, they will have equal access to evidence and the judge will decide what comes out and what does not. What's the problem here?
Depending on the state constitution of the state in question, local government (those under the state level) may not even have the legal right to exist and collect taxes. That said, higher law almost always trumps lower law. Where is your representation? In Indianapolis.
Erm -- your governor was elected, was he not? There is your representation. Depending on your state laws and constitution (passed by your state representatives--more representation), there may or may not be additional legislative or judicial recourse to overturn a decision like this.
You seem to be under the belief that you live in a democracy. You do not. If you want to, there are a handful of them around the world, but criticizing the US government for not being what it was never intended to be is a bit silly.
The US is a Republic. We elect people who make decisions. We don't get to be in on every one. The fact that it was the state legislature or governor and not Bob the Mayor of Smalltown who made a decision doesn't mean you weren't represented.
Out of curiosity, how did your own state lawmakers (the ones you are directly involved in electing) vote on the tax measure? If they didn't vote the way you believe, what are you going to do about it?
Incidentally, none of your points address the grandparent's point about honesty which you quoted. Government doing things that you don't like does not make it dishonest.
All* of this is true, and all of it is, in my mind, totally reprehensible. But at the same time, I'm a believer that we get the government we deserve. (I live in Illinois, by the way, but it's pretty much the same everywhere.) We get these leaders because we elect these leaders. Often repeatedly. At a federal level, there are definitely laws which favor the two-party system. As you drill down to more local levels, we have these problems because we choose to. Most governing is done locally, even though very few people--even among the small percentage who bother to vote EVER--are actively interested or involved in local politics.
(*The part that is not entirely true: Laws about who can and can not vote are made at a state level. There are a handful of states in which felons can vote, though in most they can not.)
The legal ability to do this really isn't an issue of corruption. The Supreme Court decided a matter of law. Their current interpretation of the Constitution is that economic development is for the public good, and therefore fits the criteria for the long-established power of eminent domain to apply.
For what it's worth, the reaction from Congress to the decision was bitterly opposed; I believe they even passed some legislation that withheld federal money to governments who did this sort of thing. That's how it should be. The USSC decided what the law said currently. If we want to change it, that's the job of Congress.
There are lots of things that are wrong in America, but as I said before, we probably deserve them. If we elect asshats, we have to expect to live with asshat decisions. It is one of the major failings of a Republic, but until we come up with something better it's what we've got.
What you say is somewhat true, but also a bit naive.
First of all, if a president--especially a popular president--makes something an issue, you can be 99.99% sure that he's going to get a number of sponsors for any sort of legislation that he wants. The political reality is that a president who is so vastly different from every single member of Congress that he wouldn't be able to find a single person to introduce a bill for him, simply would not be elected.
Secondly, a president wields veto power over legislation. That means that he essentially holds the vote of 16 Senators and 72 or so Representatives if he decides to "vote" against a measure. Therefore, your statement that "[t]he president has less of a chance of increasing the odds of gun control legislation passing" is true only if you disregard his ability to PREVENT gun control legislation from being law. His mere willingness to sign such legislation increases the odds of it being law, particularly in a closely-divided Congress such as we have had lately. In the case of Obama, and assuming the Democratic majority holds, he may be very close to having what he needs for gun control legislation without changing a single mind. (It depends on how many of these moderate Democrats elected last election would be pro gun-control, and of course how many on either side would break from their ranks.)
None of that includes the presidents' power as granted by his popularity. Particularly in the House, a strong president can gain support for legislation simply by being so strong. He can't pass a law himself, but he CERTAINLY can make things more or less likely to pass.
Not necessarily. In issues of civil tort, liability can be proportioned among different parties. For example, if somebody dashed into the street to get a ball and was hit by a car driven by a man who was busy tuning his radio at the time, they might decide that the accident was 60% the driver's fault and 40% the victim's.
In this case, if I am not mistaken, these batteries were recalled months ago. A good lawyer--and you can bet a company like Dell will have several--is going to argue that there comes a point where they have acted responsibly and issues like this are entirely in the hands of the consumers. I think if we're being fair to Sony/Dell--hard around here, I know!--we would agree that that is true. We might not agree on what amount of time has to pass before that happens, but... well, that would be for a jury to decide.
This has two very real implications for this homeowner:
1. Even if he wins his case, he may not receive enough money to replace his home (and presumably possessions) to a state similar to what they were before.
2. The insurance company may not want to pursue legal action. In fact, they may want to choose to screw the consumer. Win a lawsuit or pay the policy, either way the insurance company would pay out--the third option is to basically agree with what the Dell lawyer is bound to say, that the homeowner was largely at fault, and see how much they can wiggle out of.
I DO think he would win a fair deal of money if he sued, but it's not quite as simple as "bad battery = fire = $$$."
Please. They are doing no such thing. They're not talking about randomly disabling peoples' operating systems or something. This is about a situation where somebody agrees to get a free (or, perhaps largely discounted) computer in exchange for watching ads. The catch is that they can't just say "oh, sure!" and laugh their asses off while they don't watch squat, because of the system Microsoft has where the computer itself can tell if you're watching.
Personally, I would never agree to such nonsense with my machine -- but if I DID, somehow I think I lose the right to bitch about how evil Microsoft is for giving me my free computer and expecting something in return. If you agree to a deal, even a bad deal, I do not see how it is evil for the other party to expect you to live up to your bargain. Call me when Microsoft's actions (in this department!) are illegal and thus the contract void and we'll have a case. Then again, "having a case" probably just means they take the computer back anyway.
It would suck pretty bad, but we're supposed to be largely pro free-market here, right? If that's what cable operators do, we should vote with our dollars and give our business to others. Other alternatives to cable (satellite, IPTV soon, etc) are out there. If there is a legal/monopolistic issue to be solved, that's what the courts are for.
Microsoft does plenty of evil stuff, but I don't see how forcing you to abide by terms you have agreed to is one of them.
Dunno if your comment was meant to be funny or not, but...
Making suicide illegal has nothing to do with reducing suicides. It's not intended to.
The fact is that most of the time a successful suicide follows a number of botched attempts first. If suicides are illegal, they can take the person after the botched attempts and force them into counseling or whatever they think might help. If they're legal, you can't force them to get help. You just have to hope they do or wait to see if they get better at the whole suicide thing the second time around.
Which way is the better way, eh, you decide for yourself.
Correction: There are plenty of Americans on both sides of the coin who crave government telling OTHER people what to do.
I read an article (link) that seemed to indicate the opposite:
If you think about it, this makes sense. Everything being equal, Wal-Mart would much rather you come into its store and walk out with a physical DVD--and, they hope, a couple of armfuls of other merchandise--than make a few clicks of your mouse from your chair at home and buy only the video.
At the same time, I think they understand that the prices won't stay equal forever. While they wait, they get to establish themselves as leaders in the market for downloadable content.
Ironically, that is approximately what "Head-On!" is made of...
Gerbil vomit would be at least as effective in treating headaches as the ball of wax that crap is, anyway.
I generally use mail as a metaphor for packets, but I suppose it works as a metaphor for the whole process.
A message is addressed and sent to somebody, who opens it up and reads it, then reacts to whatever it says--possibly by writing their own letter and sending it to the original person. The difference being, of course, that the messages are sent over a wire at extremely fast speeds rather than put into a post office box. You could probably extend the analogy to include "mail sorting machines" along the way for routers/switches, but it might be more than they need (or want) to know.
Since I'm sure people understand the mail system at least at a high level, they should understand the metaphor. If they want to know in more detail than that, chances are you should abandon metaphors entirely and just explain the process for real.
I don't think it's really a matter of group think. Some of it is, of course, and some more of it is the fact that you can score cheap political points by saying "let's torture all sex offenders to death, huzzah!"
The problem is you, and me. It's the public. If a politican said something like, "I think we should re-think our sex offender laws," can you imagine what would happen? Pundits, talk show hosts and everybody in the opposing party would instantly paint them in a way that basically amounts to "they have nothing against somebody raping your child." It doesn't matter that that is not what he said. It doesn't matter that he might have been talking about cases like two 16 year olds who videotaped themselves having sex being brought up on child pornography charges or something similarly absurd, rather than legitimate sexual predators. Once he's hung with that label, he's in deep trouble.
"Senator Jones doesn't care about your children. He proposed a re-examination of the laws that put child sex offenders behind bars and require you to be notified if one moves in next door. Vote for Bob. He knows exactly where he stands on sexual predators. (Paid for by Parents Who Love And Protect Their Children.)"
And it would work. Partially because people get hysterical whenever they hear the words "sex offender." Partially because people are so horribly uninformed that if they saw an ad like that, they wouldn't bother to see what the other side of the story was--they'd just figure their Senator needed a new job. Partially because it's good television to skewer the Senator by bringing his most rabid opponents in with his official spokesperson to give "fair and balanced" coverage--conflict sells, and always has.
There are lot of places where blame can be placed, but it ultimately has to be placed right at the feet of the voters. Voters who don't vote at all. Voters who don't care to see two sides of the issues. All of the things I mentioned are horrible, and they come from different sources--tv networks, politicians, political action groups, etc--but the bottom line is if it didn't work, it wouldn't be done.
We, as a collective voting body, don't allow free thought. More importantly, we don't allow complex opinions. Your opinion may not be any more complex than you can fully explain in a 10 second sound bite. This is, very unfortunately, the attention span of the average American voter as it relates to the people who will be representing them in government.
As sad as it is for me to say so, when so many people act like that, we deserve the politicians we get. We deserve the stupid laws we get.
Because you don't always have that luxury. Tell your friend that there are many cases where you can be tired and be almost forced to drive anyway. What if you had trouble sleeping the night before? Or your baby kept crying and kept you awake? What if you were sick but had to get somewhere (say, to the doctor or to work)? You'll note that all of those examples are essentially out of the driver's control. Many more would be added if you permit cases where something the driver did before but could have avoided caused the fatigue--like partying all night (for the younger crowd) or anything along those lines.
Some people will claim that missing a day of work and potentially getting fired if you don't show up is a small price to pay for not dying. They're not wrong, if you know you're going to die--but you don't. It's a calculated risk; say, 50% chance of getting fired versus, what, 1% chance of dying because you drove tired? Probably significantly less than that, in fact. Some fairly cheap rumble strips on the sides of the road to save a few lives isn't an unreasonable thing to add.
It depends on where we are talking about. For children--that is, definitely K-8 and probably even all the way through high school--it should be the school's prerogative as to what they filter or not. In other words, they should absolutely have the right to determine what "wasting their bandwidth" means.
The example you give, being in a university, is a different animal. The students are adults, and they paid as much money as you did to be attending classes there. In other words, they have exactly as much right to the machines and the bandwidth as you do, and while you're free to complain and call their uses a waste--hell, I might even agree with you--neither you nor the school should have a right to curb that use.
Public libraries I'm a little more torn on, but my gut says that since they're supported by taxes that they should be equally unencumbered, regardless of whether the users are adults or not.
I'm sympathetic to your need to use the computer for actual university-related work, I just don't think it gives you or the IT staff any right to impose usage restrictions. "Excuse me, I really need to use a computer to write a paper" should be the approach.
Speaking of anecdotal evidence...
I think that is true only of people who really haven't seen HD. Even my mom, who watches approximately no TV on average, is stunned by HD quality and will sit in my brother's room watching something like Discovery HD for 60-90 minutes. That's pretty much unheard of for her in most cases.
She wants an HD TV. She just can't justify the cost right now because, in her words, "there's nothing wrong with our TV." When either the costs come down a bit more or something goes flaky with the TV, she's going to be in the HD world. And she's probably going to beat me there!
They're not claiming that at all. $150,000 wasn't a random number, nor was the fact that it was called "the maximum" in the article summary just word choice. In fact, anybody at all familiar with copyright law--even just the little trickles that make it through on sites like this--will have their ears twitch in recognition at hearing the number.
$150,000 is the maximum allowed statutory damages according to US copyright law. It has nothing to do with how much their losses were.
Further, realize that damages come in two parts: compensatory (what you actually lost) and punitive (punishment for the act). Punitive damages are almost always substantially higher than compensatory damages in situations like this. Even if they only claimed $11 million punitive damages ($1/download, the iTunes price), the law says they're perfectly free to claim the other $1.649+ trillion.
Will they get that much (if they get anything)? Almost certainly not, but that doesn't stop them from asking for it.
As a disclaimer, I found most of the points in the article to be exceptionally boring. A fair deal of it is true, but some of it--like complaining that font sizes are too big--seem like a stretch to fill a Top 10 list rather than a legitimate complaint.
As to your question: No, because the issue is usability, not aesthetics. Sometimes really pretty things help you get things done; often times they do not. His article was exceptionally easy to read. The navigation definitely stood out. It was ugly, in my opinion, but it was definitely usable.
If you want to nit pick his usability, a quick glance over his markup show the lack of use of things such as access keys, which is a usability issue for blind users. Also things like useless ALT tags, etc.
Well, he doesn't deride gestural input unless you're taking some liberties with assumptions. What he says is that "it is very tiring to keep your arms in the air while using a computer." He also says that 2D is better than 3D in most cases, but also explicitly points out that 3D interfaces have their places. Video games would seem like a fair place to use them.
For one thing, you're not necessarily keeping your arms up. If you're having, say, a sword fight, you may keep your arms up; bowling doesn't require that. Tennis requires it a little bit (serves) and after that it can be anything from an underhand to a backhand motion. Plus, the word "requires" is a bit much since it says explicitly that exaggerated movements aren't really necessary. Most people also are probably not playing video games for 8 hours (nearly straight) every day such as they would be doing at work.