Not sure what a non-abstract name would look like. Wacky just a qualitative opinion but it is true that some names are more easily remembered than others...
People in the thread must not be very observant about names.
Go to the store and take note of the names of soaps, deodorants, diapers, feminine hygiene, and personal care items.
You are buying things like "Joy", "Tide", "Dawn" for soaps, "Luvs" and "Huggies" for diapers, "Carefree", "Always", "Depends", and more.
Names are about marketing. Otherwise we would buy things like ShitWipes brand toilet paper, which I think I would totally buy just because of the name.
AP Calculus is now too far removed from the common core. Fewer and fewer districts have students who are able to reach that level within the Common Core Curriculum guidelines.
When I went to college two decades ago, college algebra was a remedial course. The first year of college math was calculus.
Today, school districts are offering AP Algebra. The AP Calculus courses that were fairly common among my peer group (we had about 20 students in the class) are completely gone in this school district, eliminated when they transitioned to the CCC standard.
The cry for standardization means in most cases that students are also restricted from reaching their potential.
And, miraculously, we reach the goal of ensuring everyone's education meets at least the standards of the common core, despite schools continuing to arbitrarily assign letters to students.
Do honestly you not see the issue with that?
Yes, we get most people to meet the minimum standard, and nothing higher.
Some schools treat it as a minimum standard, and encourage kids to reach their full potential, no matter how great that potential is.
Sadly, most schools treat CCC as the ideal standard, once a child reaches that level they are abandoned.
My own school district proudly announced that they were adopting the CCC standard, and using it to save money. My wife (a school teacher) showed exactly how they were doing it. The district was eliminating all advanced courses, honors courses, and most AP courses over a three year plan. We talked with a lot of other concerned parents, talked with district officials and political officials. Basically they asked why we were against saving money, and why we didn't want people to reach the minimum standards. The few people who agreed that the district was not helping the best and brightest could only suggest private schooling.
I still had children in the system, with one still left in the school system. Since my wife was a teacher and knew what to say and who to say it to, we managed to get my daughter into the higher courses while they were in the process of eliminating them. Her core classes are now two years above her classmates, and we'll be enrolling her in early college for those four classes during her junior and senior years since the district happily did away with most AP courses during the transition.
If you are in a district that still pushes kids to their full potential, then good for you! Congratulations! You are among the happy minority.
If you are among the majority of families where CCC meant the district cancels advanced courses, eliminates electives, and uses it as a reason to be lazy and stop helping children maximize their potential, then you know it sucks to be in this majority.
I used to think that the ACLU was a force for good, and they might be. But they do not know when to quit, or compromise on anything. Here we are finally getting accountability for law enforcement, and now they want to stop the program?
Obviously you didn't RTFA.
The ACLU complaint was that while the law requires LEOs to carry the cameras, it does not mandate that they actually record anything, it does not mandate that the recordings be made available to the citizens who were arrested, interviewed, or interacted with, and it doesn't specify a data retention policy.
The ACLU agreed that cameras are good. They want mandatory recordings rather than optional recordings. They want the complete, unedited recording to be available to the citizens involved. And they want a data retention policy so officers cannot delete the material the same day, nor can they keep it indefinitely.
The ACLU's 2-page comment (see the article) cited specific cases where these were problems. One had multiple officers turn cameras off when a citizen didn't cooperate, then they turned the cameras back on to reveal a citizen who was badly injured, with the official report being they had injured themselves while resisting arrest. Also it cites accounts where officers clearly edited footage by removing potentially incriminating bits, and of officers deleting the recordings the same day rather than filing them as part of the reports of their associated incidents.
Once it becomes commonplace and accepted, the jury will be very unlikely to take an officer's word if their camera "malfunctioned".
That is a good thing.
We live in an era where video is cheap and easy. Yet cops still record videos of 'interviews' with suspects, and then if nothing interesting happened request written transcripts and delete the video, or if there was something interesting get transcripts of everything and delete everything except keep the few interest bits that support their views.
Yes, it is a good thing. Pics or it didn't happen when the police are making accusations, with pics or it DID happen when accusations are leveled against the police.
Agreed. There is already precedence - if a corporation destroys documents sought during an investigation the court will treat those documents as if they were incriminating. Video should be no different - absence of video on its face should be sufficient to exclude any testimony by the officer or evidence collected by them.
Quite true in theory.
In practice, bad cops already delete video, edit video, and turn off cameras during incidents. With no evidence of the abuse and the bad cops lying about it, judges rule in the officer's favor. See TFA for several court cases where this was demonstrated, including one where multiple officers turned off their cameras when the suspect was making a fuss, then they all turned them back on and the suspect was seriously injured and had supposedly resisted and injured himself. Judges still sided with the cops.
A lot of the good (from the police perspective) is that people don't act like jerks when they're clearly being filmed. Amazingly you're less likely to be a dick to cops when the camera is on you. In-car cameras turn on and off automatically when they have the lights and sirens on. Pull a guy over, and video gets shot - period. Wearables don't have that yet, but we'll get there.
That was in fact the main point of the ACLU's objection (RTFA for details), citing that the law did not require the devices be turned on, did not specify that citizens could access the recordings, and did not specify data retention policies.
In TFA the ACLU cited several actual court cases where cameras were running, and then either mysteriously malfunctioned or were intentionally turned off by police or where the footage was "lost", and the judge ruled in favor of the cops because of a lack of evidence and they believed the officer story.
The bill only said police had to carry the cameras. I'm certain the good cops would have left them recording and done all they should. Unfortunately the law allows bad cops to keep turning off the cameras during the beatings, allows bad cops to retroactively edit and delete the video, and allows departments to keep the video secret unless government prosecutors review the recording and decide it contains potentially exculpatory evidence. The ACLU wants mandatory recording, mandatory citizen access for their interaction with police, and mandatory retention policies.
That avoids the "oops, I accidentally turned it off while you were beaten", and the "you need a full lawsuit to get access to the clips, assuming we still have them [wink]", and officers deleting the clips of the beatings so they can claim malfunction later. These are standard specification requirements in data systems, so the fact that the three were missing from the bill was quite suspicious.
(Basically bad cops and prosecutors could continue to use the law against people. If these prosecutors review the video and believe it doesn't meet the exculpatory rules the current law says they don't need to hand it over to defense, although fortunately more judges are starting to rule this violates due process, telling cops and prosecutors to hand over EVRYTHING instead of just LEO-submitted evidence and LEO-censored exculpatory material.)
But the footage can be lost and blamed on an "off" camera.
That is exactly what the ACLU objected to.
The proposed bill mandated that police carried them, but left optional what is recorded, did not require access by citizens, and did not specify a data retention policy. The ACLU objection (see the actual story) cited cases where police turned off the cameras during the (alleged) abuses, sometimes multiple cops turning off each others cameras, and where judges ruled in favor of the cops when the evidence was missing. Data could also be deleted the same day for no reason other than a personal judgement call.
The bill was a good start, but needs mandatory recording requirements, mandatory citizen access, and mandatory data retention policies.
One camera might get accidentally obstructed, but suppose a couple of cops turn up. If all the cameras are suddenly malfunctioning, that's looking less like technology and more like collusion.
That is exactly the thing the ACLU objection was about (for those who didn't read the actual article).
Specific objections were that cops could turn off the camera whenever they wanted, ACLU cited specific examples where critical moments of video were missing. Police barge in, video cuts out, video turns back on with citizen claiming abuse, and Judge decides there is missing evidence, sides with police. See the linked document for legal citations.
ACLU also cited a lack of citizen access to the tape (only cops and prosecutors had access generally) and no data retention policy. They could keep it for years to dig up facts later, or they could destroy it when the citizen complains and claim it was accidentally deleted early.
In general, mandatory cop cameras are a good idea. The trouble with this law was it left far too much in the optional category. Optional when it is running. Optional in citizens getting access. Optional in when the data is deleted. We need mandatory recordings, mandatory access by citizens, and mandatory data retention policies.
you do realize interstellar transport is impossible right?
Not at all. In fact, we had all the tools for interstellar travel decades ago. It will take a long, long, long time for our machines to reach another star, but they have more than sufficient escape velocity and nothing between them and their eventual destinations.
Your other links are based on rules set up by special relativity. Many people assume physics stopped at Newtonian physics in the 17th century, or they stop at Einstein's theories which are over a century old.
Physics has come quite a long way since Einstein's 1905 STR and 1916 GR papers. Over the past century we've learned that things can escape from black holes, that the speed of light in a vacuum may actually be variable rather than constant, that field theory provides a more accurate picture of the Universe, and that field distortions can theoretically allow faster than light travel without violating special relativity or general relativity.
Riding field waves is not only theoretically possible, recent studies like Gravity Probe B have successfully done it in passive tests. Modern field theory work allow for both the Alcubierre drive and the Casimir Vacuum. Both are being heavily researched. Initial critics of the Alcubierre drive claimed it needed more energy than all the measured mass of the known Universe, but those have been thoroughly debunked --- Gravity Probe B rode such a wave passively just by being in orbit around the Earth. Building our own portable gravity wave generators is still a problem, but probably not unsolvable. Present research by people like Sonny White's suggest using a very thin, narrow field you could make something similar to a water skier riding a wake with relatively little power requirements. Sonny White is leading teams at NASA working on both reactionless drives based on quantum vacuums and preliminary tests for detecting the field waves needed for an Alcubierre drive. With gravitational frame dragging recently being confirmed, having a bigger ship riding a gravitational wave certainly seems plausible. It may take us a several hundred years to figure out how to do it, but each new experiment tends to suggest FTL travel is possible within the next few centuries.
Remember that powered flight started with 16th-century experiments and wasn't realized until almost 400 years later. We are only beginning our experiments in space travel and probably have several hundred years of research ahead of us before major breakthroughs. So far the wave riding experiments have reinforced that it is possible, and using them to accomplish FTL travel doesn't violate any of the measured rules, including causality.
what common core are YOU talking about?... so, to start with, the common core doesn't even have a required reading list, it leaves it open to schools to select.
And that bold bit right there is the fatal flaw in the design of common core.
It was designed as a common minimum standard that all students must meet. Some schools still follow that, setting higher goals but grudgingly accepting that as a passing minimum score. Passing the CCC gets a C grade.
Unfortunately many schools treat it as an ideal standard that once met can be the child's plateau. If they meet the minimum standard it is considered the height of success; passing the CCC gets an A grade.
So it is entirely up to the individual schools to determine how this works. Some schools continue to set lofty goals with the CCC as the quiet minimum standard that must be met while encouraging students to reach their highest capacity. Some schools attempt to get all students up to that year's standard and then stop; remaining effort is spent on getting less-skilled and less-interested kids to pass the tests rather than continuing the success of the students who want to learn.
If your students go to a school with lofty standards and the CCC standard is a barely passing grade, you will feel very differently than those where the school treats the minimum standard as the goal and a barely acceptable grade is considered an A-level.
The sickness is endemic, and not just in government either; pretty much all big business suffers from this once it reaches critical mass.... every business meeting will become an elaborate excuse to not do any work.
I think the description in his resignation goes far beyond the sickness you describe. In big business it gets broken up, either by intervention or by just firing everybody. This is far beyond just not working.
One paragraph of the resignation letter that shows it off spectacularly:
"On another occasion I asked your deputy why you didn’t conduct an evaluation by the Op-Divs of the immediate office administrative services to try to improve them. She responded that that had been tried a few years ago and the results were so negative that no further evaluations have been conducted."
So the person in charge says they tried to make it better years ago, but the environment was such a cesspool that they decided to not even bother trying to make it better.
Correct, with decades of measurements it was estimated to be about 40 solar masses, but now that is being revised thanks to the smaller star.
It is shedding lots of mass and is not very compact, and appears to be fluctuating internally and exploding externally. It is likely near the end of its life. So the outer shell appears to be 1315 times the diameter of Sol, but coming in at 40 Msun most of that is probably fairly sparse.
Note that "end of its life" for a star is a really long time. At that size their life is relatively short for a star, about 5 million years, so it could possibly have a half million years left. Generations from now we could have interstellar ships visiting the star for additional research. I mean, even if it takes a thousand years for us to get the technology for fast interstellar travel plus the 12,000 light years of distance, the star will likely still be in its final stages. As for what will happen, nobody knows. It might collapse as a supernova, but astronomers can only speculate at the conditions that cause supernova; there have been no observed supernova in our galaxy since 1604, and the telescope data from that time doesn't exactly tell us details about the size and type of star involved. We can make educated guesses based on supernovae in distant galaxies, but those also are rather sparse on pre-collapse details.
Supernova is only one possible outcome. It might eventually become a blue supergiant. It might eventually become a blue variable. If it eventually collapses the mass is near enough the 40 Msun boundary that both neutron stars and black holes are possible options. If it eventually collapses to a black hole quickly it could skip the dramatic show, it would just visibly vanish. If it eventually collapses slowly a supernova is possible, as are less energetic options. There is even the option of a double collapse, first to neutron star then to black hole, which possibly could result in a hypernova. It is also possible that a series of partial collapses could cause pieces to explode and break up rather than collapse, making a fun fireworks show lasting for ages. But really there is insufficient data; there are not enough data points to know what is going to happen. It might be fun to speculate, but like most stars we probably won't see anything interesting happen in our lifetimes. With our measly 100 year lives we can only record the tiniest window of the lifetime of stars.
That binary system is going to make one heck of a supernova at some point in the distant future.
Maybe, probably not, but there is not enough data to know. It's been over four hundred years since the last recorded supernova in the Milky Way, and telescopes weren't that great in 1604. (Also the standard note about time and distance in astronomy, the star's light we see today is from about 12,000 years in our past. We cannot see today, we see the past.)
There is not enough data to say what will happen, and there are only a few major options for a star that size: partial collapse, full collapse, or ablation.
It might go through a series of partial collapses, with many small contractions end up ejecting huge chunks of the star, then re-expanding, and themselves re-exploding on their way out. This seems to be a fairly normal end-of-life pattern. Basically the core works like a fireworks launch platform as we see in summertime displays. Eventually the remaining core might be collapsed or not, but the show will be enjoyable. The result is a small nebula.
It might collapse into a neutron star. It might even collapse to a black hole. Either of these collapses MIGHT lead to a supernova, or maybe even a hypernova, or have a bunch of gamma bursts, or, most boring, nothing much at all; it just collapses with a (relatively mild compared to supernova) explosion and the outer layers blow away. Modern astronomers never seen it happen up close, so everything is a guess. Now that the partner is known people might be able to make a better guess, but it is still a guess. Depending on when it explodes, if ever, it will likely form a big nebula.
The actual article says the larger star is rapidly shedding mass. If it is throwing enough mass out fast enough (which will be affected by its binary partner) it will shrink enough to avoid a core collapse. In that case it will throw out a bunch of mass and in a few centuries appear as a small nebula.
But again we don't know what will happen because there are no similar data points. If you are looking for nearby stars to go supernova, there is a short list of known supernova candidates that we can watch. Otherwise the supernova we see are from distant galaxies where we can only speculate about.
I've wondered why more online educational institutions don't try something this, real groups that meet somewhere public to work through a course together. The aspect of being paired with a working programmer eventually is also a great advantage, but just having a group to work with would lead lot more people to have enough motivation to complete a class.
Some schools do. Back in my academic days in the 1990s, my school (a state university) partnered with the local AFB for such things. Some of the people in the lab spent half their day working on fighter jet programs and other systems on the base. In exchange a lot of people got recruited by the base and by the base's contractors as civilian programmers before graduation.
However, I note in the story that they businesses are looking for a specific class of programmers: The low-paid programmers who have enough background to be useful but not enough background to demand a high salary.
Specifically the businesses are looking for people with one year of training on how to use the language. Those who graduate from the program will likely enjoy a few years on the job --- probably paid a living wage for those few years --- and then will be dumped when they start asking for professional wages.
Contrary to what those business want you to believe, there is not a shortage of programmers. Instead, there is a mismatch between what the businesses want to pay versus what programmers believe they should earn. Skilled programmers provide valuable services, are very much white-collar workers, and are able to demand a high salary just like doctors, lawyers, pilots, architects, and other highly-trained, highly skilled professionals. Businesses who pay well have no difficulty finding skilled and talented programmers. Businesses who pay their programmers the same rate as their hourly call center workers, well, they get the quality they paid for.
Software runs the world. I wouldn't want a minimum-wage physician, or a minimum-wage airline pilot, or a building designed by a minimum-wage architect. I similarly wouldn't trust custom-built software written by minimum-wage programmers.
I'm confused, is it a "huge" cost, or a "non-zero" cost?
Both, because you need to multiply it by planes in service.
A few seconds on Google shows there are around 20,000 registered commercial airliners, and around 145,000 registered aircraft (including commercial aircraft, corporate jets, personal airplanes, military aircraft, and so on.) It doesn't include non-registered aircraft, of which there are many.
But the costs multiply. So when you start with $100K for the device plus installation, you are looking at $14B for the first pass. Then your small annual fee multiplies to perhaps fifty million every year in upkeep and service fees.
If you are talking about a major aircraft like a commercial B777 passenger craft, the installation and upkeep is relatively small. These massive aircraft are expensive to buy and maintain. The amortized cost per passenger over a year's flights is going to be a fraction of a cent.
When you are talking about smaller craft like the super common Cessna 172, the device is going to be about 1/4 of the cost of the airplane. All the little utility aircraft are the most common type of aircraft, even though most of us only associate airplanes with the giant cargo jets and passenger flights.
Ultimately let's assume they are looking around $14B initial investment plus $50M/year continuous cost. All of that money to get a little information once every few years when an airplane gets lost over the ocean. Is it worth it? Perhaps it is worth it for the large commercial passenger airlines, but not for all aircraft.
To me, the problem is that it breaks promise of neutrality, and deceives anyone who believes it's a neutral piece.
NPOV is a lofty goal, but not a firm promise. For niche fields it can be difficult or impossible to find enough sources to present a neutral view.
This is why Wikipedia policy prefers secondary sources but will still accept primary sources when few or none exist. The policy allows for the encyclopedia to have accurate information with proper references (yet written with a bias) rather than for the encyclopedia to have no information on the topic at all. The policy clearly allows articles written by the closely-affiliated experts citing only primary sources when the material is noteworthy. Such articles are less likely to be neutral, but they are still valuable.
There are broad topics that millions of people understand and sources are plentiful. These articles have no problem with NPOV. However, many articles are about niche fields or niche topics. Generally the experts in the field also work in the field. The experts on a particular business often work in that business. The experts on a specific technology often are intimately familiar with it.
The thief will still pick your pocket. When they get back to their evil lair, they will find it is password protected. If they try to break the protection (which is easy with the right tools) they will find it is encrypted. Then they will trash the device or perhaps attempt to sell it. For you it doesn't matter, your device is still stolen and must be replaced.
There are tons of tools out there to make backups so restoration is easy on a new device. But your device is still stolen and must be replaced.
These people have access to all the modern conveniences via their jobs. They have chosen not to learn anything about them which would be O.K. if it wasn't critical to their job performance.
Actually the SCOTUS has shown they are more than willing to learn about something required for them to do their jobs.
Go back a few years when they had a specific case about video games and free speech in 2011. They set up a lab and played the ultra-violent games for a few days, both online and off, to help make a decision. (All of them agreed with the free speech, two dissented saying it was not regulating speech, but was regulating the sale of products.)
Historically the judges have been willing to get their hands dirty and view the gritty details when they are called to review them for a case. They have traveled to remote locations, dug through physical evidence, and gotten their hands dirty. They may not be hardcore gamers or telecom experts, but when it comes to ruling on the law they are making determinations based on the exact wording on the law. Such a decision can be made based on reviewing the facts, reviewing details provided by experts, and looking at the specific items enough to satisfy their opinions.
Sure, the data might be safe from a government's prying eyes, but will it be safe from a government who kindly pays for the data, with the company acquiescing between it wants to maintain its lucrative business links with the authorities?
FTFY
...that also has the power to jail anyone, including corporate executives, for undisclosed national security reasons and undisclosed duration if they fail to cooperate?
I think it's absolutely wrong to out someone who is actively trying to remain out of the spotlight
Let's say for argument sake that it is accurate. That is the bitcoin owner, who isn't spending any of the bitcoins.
The person does not want to talk about it. If he is serious about that, waving microphones in front of the man is NOT going to encourage him to be forthcoming with personal stories.
So what does it change? Nothing!
There is no benefit to anyone. Now if the guy wanted to open up and share stories, that is what the media is hungering for. But he isn't doing that.
The BEST thing the guy could do is say "Yes that is me. I have nothing more to say, and I don't think I ever will. Now get off my lawn." and then refuse to say anything more. In fact, judging by the story, that is EXACTLY what he did say. There is no story or controversy around it. This is just some guy who has access to something valuable.
Some of the media folk may want to ask him questions, hoping to make a buck when he shares a story, but if he chooses not to share anything they'll quickly lose interest when the next something shiny comes around.
is there some way that the real Satoshi could affirm his existence
Why?
What does it gain anybody?
Let's say that is the guy, he didn't lose the key, and he has access to a valuable resource. So what? I know several people who are fairly wealthy, their wealth does not define them, nor does it make them inherently powerful or anything. What is the point of having them prove their wealth to someone?
About the only thing anyone would want is to hear stories. No matter if that is the man or not, the real bitcoin owner does not want to share stories. Sticking microphones in his face and asking him questions about his life is unlikely to encourage him to share personal stories. There is nothing to gain by trying to point out that a person has a valuable object when the person has insisted for years they don't wish to discuss it.
The core components, such as Direct3D and DirectInput, are considered part of the operating system [microsoft.com]
Considering how they are tied to windows core components, I suppose there is a slim chance that Windows 7 SP2 could potentially include DX12 in it.
Of course, there is also a slim chance the Easter Bunny will bring me solid gold eggs and Santa will fill my stocking with hundred dollar bills. I'd much prefer either of those.
The have already said announcement at GDC will not deviate their course; DirectX 12 is being announced late March as part of a series of press releases right before the new Windows SDK for the 8.1 Update is released in April. All of the updates are part of the Windows SDK for 8.1 Update., much like the Windows 7 Update where they released a new Windows SDK to accompany it..
XP = DX9c. Vista = DX10. Vista SP1 = DX10.1. Vista SP2 = DX10.2. Win7 = DX11. WIn 7 SP1 = DX11.1. Win 8 = DX11.1. Win 8.1 = DX11.2. And now it looks like Win 8.1 SP1 = DX12. It really shouldn't be that difficult to grasp.
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wacky abstract names
Not sure what a non-abstract name would look like. Wacky just a qualitative opinion but it is true that some names are more easily remembered than others...
People in the thread must not be very observant about names.
Go to the store and take note of the names of soaps, deodorants, diapers, feminine hygiene, and personal care items.
You are buying things like "Joy", "Tide", "Dawn" for soaps, "Luvs" and "Huggies" for diapers, "Carefree", "Always", "Depends", and more.
Names are about marketing. Otherwise we would buy things like ShitWipes brand toilet paper, which I think I would totally buy just because of the name.
Following up my own post with an example.
AP Calculus is now too far removed from the common core. Fewer and fewer districts have students who are able to reach that level within the Common Core Curriculum guidelines.
When I went to college two decades ago, college algebra was a remedial course. The first year of college math was calculus.
Today, school districts are offering AP Algebra. The AP Calculus courses that were fairly common among my peer group (we had about 20 students in the class) are completely gone in this school district, eliminated when they transitioned to the CCC standard.
The cry for standardization means in most cases that students are also restricted from reaching their potential.
And, miraculously, we reach the goal of ensuring everyone's education meets at least the standards of the common core, despite schools continuing to arbitrarily assign letters to students.
Do honestly you not see the issue with that?
Yes, we get most people to meet the minimum standard, and nothing higher.
Some schools treat it as a minimum standard, and encourage kids to reach their full potential, no matter how great that potential is.
Sadly, most schools treat CCC as the ideal standard, once a child reaches that level they are abandoned.
My own school district proudly announced that they were adopting the CCC standard, and using it to save money. My wife (a school teacher) showed exactly how they were doing it. The district was eliminating all advanced courses, honors courses, and most AP courses over a three year plan. We talked with a lot of other concerned parents, talked with district officials and political officials. Basically they asked why we were against saving money, and why we didn't want people to reach the minimum standards. The few people who agreed that the district was not helping the best and brightest could only suggest private schooling.
I still had children in the system, with one still left in the school system. Since my wife was a teacher and knew what to say and who to say it to, we managed to get my daughter into the higher courses while they were in the process of eliminating them. Her core classes are now two years above her classmates, and we'll be enrolling her in early college for those four classes during her junior and senior years since the district happily did away with most AP courses during the transition.
If you are in a district that still pushes kids to their full potential, then good for you! Congratulations! You are among the happy minority.
If you are among the majority of families where CCC meant the district cancels advanced courses, eliminates electives, and uses it as a reason to be lazy and stop helping children maximize their potential, then you know it sucks to be in this majority.
I used to think that the ACLU was a force for good, and they might be. But they do not know when to quit, or compromise on anything. Here we are finally getting accountability for law enforcement, and now they want to stop the program?
Obviously you didn't RTFA.
The ACLU complaint was that while the law requires LEOs to carry the cameras, it does not mandate that they actually record anything, it does not mandate that the recordings be made available to the citizens who were arrested, interviewed, or interacted with, and it doesn't specify a data retention policy.
The ACLU agreed that cameras are good. They want mandatory recordings rather than optional recordings. They want the complete, unedited recording to be available to the citizens involved. And they want a data retention policy so officers cannot delete the material the same day, nor can they keep it indefinitely.
The ACLU's 2-page comment (see the article) cited specific cases where these were problems. One had multiple officers turn cameras off when a citizen didn't cooperate, then they turned the cameras back on to reveal a citizen who was badly injured, with the official report being they had injured themselves while resisting arrest. Also it cites accounts where officers clearly edited footage by removing potentially incriminating bits, and of officers deleting the recordings the same day rather than filing them as part of the reports of their associated incidents.
Once it becomes commonplace and accepted, the jury will be very unlikely to take an officer's word if their camera "malfunctioned".
That is a good thing.
We live in an era where video is cheap and easy. Yet cops still record videos of 'interviews' with suspects, and then if nothing interesting happened request written transcripts and delete the video, or if there was something interesting get transcripts of everything and delete everything except keep the few interest bits that support their views.
Yes, it is a good thing. Pics or it didn't happen when the police are making accusations, with pics or it DID happen when accusations are leveled against the police.
Agreed. There is already precedence - if a corporation destroys documents sought during an investigation the court will treat those documents as if they were incriminating. Video should be no different - absence of video on its face should be sufficient to exclude any testimony by the officer or evidence collected by them.
Quite true in theory.
In practice, bad cops already delete video, edit video, and turn off cameras during incidents. With no evidence of the abuse and the bad cops lying about it, judges rule in the officer's favor. See TFA for several court cases where this was demonstrated, including one where multiple officers turned off their cameras when the suspect was making a fuss, then they all turned them back on and the suspect was seriously injured and had supposedly resisted and injured himself. Judges still sided with the cops.
A lot of the good (from the police perspective) is that people don't act like jerks when they're clearly being filmed. Amazingly you're less likely to be a dick to cops when the camera is on you. In-car cameras turn on and off automatically when they have the lights and sirens on. Pull a guy over, and video gets shot - period. Wearables don't have that yet, but we'll get there.
That was in fact the main point of the ACLU's objection (RTFA for details), citing that the law did not require the devices be turned on, did not specify that citizens could access the recordings, and did not specify data retention policies.
In TFA the ACLU cited several actual court cases where cameras were running, and then either mysteriously malfunctioned or were intentionally turned off by police or where the footage was "lost", and the judge ruled in favor of the cops because of a lack of evidence and they believed the officer story.
The bill only said police had to carry the cameras. I'm certain the good cops would have left them recording and done all they should. Unfortunately the law allows bad cops to keep turning off the cameras during the beatings, allows bad cops to retroactively edit and delete the video, and allows departments to keep the video secret unless government prosecutors review the recording and decide it contains potentially exculpatory evidence. The ACLU wants mandatory recording, mandatory citizen access for their interaction with police, and mandatory retention policies.
That avoids the "oops, I accidentally turned it off while you were beaten", and the "you need a full lawsuit to get access to the clips, assuming we still have them [wink]", and officers deleting the clips of the beatings so they can claim malfunction later. These are standard specification requirements in data systems, so the fact that the three were missing from the bill was quite suspicious.
(Basically bad cops and prosecutors could continue to use the law against people. If these prosecutors review the video and believe it doesn't meet the exculpatory rules the current law says they don't need to hand it over to defense, although fortunately more judges are starting to rule this violates due process, telling cops and prosecutors to hand over EVRYTHING instead of just LEO-submitted evidence and LEO-censored exculpatory material.)
But the footage can be lost and blamed on an "off" camera.
That is exactly what the ACLU objected to.
The proposed bill mandated that police carried them, but left optional what is recorded, did not require access by citizens, and did not specify a data retention policy. The ACLU objection (see the actual story) cited cases where police turned off the cameras during the (alleged) abuses, sometimes multiple cops turning off each others cameras, and where judges ruled in favor of the cops when the evidence was missing. Data could also be deleted the same day for no reason other than a personal judgement call.
The bill was a good start, but needs mandatory recording requirements, mandatory citizen access, and mandatory data retention policies.
One camera might get accidentally obstructed, but suppose a couple of cops turn up. If all the cameras are suddenly malfunctioning, that's looking less like technology and more like collusion.
That is exactly the thing the ACLU objection was about (for those who didn't read the actual article).
Specific objections were that cops could turn off the camera whenever they wanted, ACLU cited specific examples where critical moments of video were missing. Police barge in, video cuts out, video turns back on with citizen claiming abuse, and Judge decides there is missing evidence, sides with police. See the linked document for legal citations.
ACLU also cited a lack of citizen access to the tape (only cops and prosecutors had access generally) and no data retention policy. They could keep it for years to dig up facts later, or they could destroy it when the citizen complains and claim it was accidentally deleted early.
In general, mandatory cop cameras are a good idea. The trouble with this law was it left far too much in the optional category. Optional when it is running. Optional in citizens getting access. Optional in when the data is deleted. We need mandatory recordings, mandatory access by citizens, and mandatory data retention policies.
you do realize interstellar transport is impossible right?
Not at all. In fact, we had all the tools for interstellar travel decades ago. It will take a long, long, long time for our machines to reach another star, but they have more than sufficient escape velocity and nothing between them and their eventual destinations.
Your other links are based on rules set up by special relativity. Many people assume physics stopped at Newtonian physics in the 17th century, or they stop at Einstein's theories which are over a century old.
Physics has come quite a long way since Einstein's 1905 STR and 1916 GR papers. Over the past century we've learned that things can escape from black holes, that the speed of light in a vacuum may actually be variable rather than constant, that field theory provides a more accurate picture of the Universe, and that field distortions can theoretically allow faster than light travel without violating special relativity or general relativity.
Riding field waves is not only theoretically possible, recent studies like Gravity Probe B have successfully done it in passive tests. Modern field theory work allow for both the Alcubierre drive and the Casimir Vacuum. Both are being heavily researched. Initial critics of the Alcubierre drive claimed it needed more energy than all the measured mass of the known Universe, but those have been thoroughly debunked --- Gravity Probe B rode such a wave passively just by being in orbit around the Earth. Building our own portable gravity wave generators is still a problem, but probably not unsolvable. Present research by people like Sonny White's suggest using a very thin, narrow field you could make something similar to a water skier riding a wake with relatively little power requirements. Sonny White is leading teams at NASA working on both reactionless drives based on quantum vacuums and preliminary tests for detecting the field waves needed for an Alcubierre drive. With gravitational frame dragging recently being confirmed, having a bigger ship riding a gravitational wave certainly seems plausible. It may take us a several hundred years to figure out how to do it, but each new experiment tends to suggest FTL travel is possible within the next few centuries.
Remember that powered flight started with 16th-century experiments and wasn't realized until almost 400 years later. We are only beginning our experiments in space travel and probably have several hundred years of research ahead of us before major breakthroughs. So far the wave riding experiments have reinforced that it is possible, and using them to accomplish FTL travel doesn't violate any of the measured rules, including causality.
what common core are YOU talking about? ... so, to start with, the common core doesn't even have a required reading list, it leaves it open to schools to select.
And that bold bit right there is the fatal flaw in the design of common core.
It was designed as a common minimum standard that all students must meet. Some schools still follow that, setting higher goals but grudgingly accepting that as a passing minimum score. Passing the CCC gets a C grade.
Unfortunately many schools treat it as an ideal standard that once met can be the child's plateau. If they meet the minimum standard it is considered the height of success; passing the CCC gets an A grade.
So it is entirely up to the individual schools to determine how this works. Some schools continue to set lofty goals with the CCC as the quiet minimum standard that must be met while encouraging students to reach their highest capacity. Some schools attempt to get all students up to that year's standard and then stop; remaining effort is spent on getting less-skilled and less-interested kids to pass the tests rather than continuing the success of the students who want to learn.
If your students go to a school with lofty standards and the CCC standard is a barely passing grade, you will feel very differently than those where the school treats the minimum standard as the goal and a barely acceptable grade is considered an A-level.
The sickness is endemic, and not just in government either; pretty much all big business suffers from this once it reaches critical mass. ... every business meeting will become an elaborate excuse to not do any work.
I think the description in his resignation goes far beyond the sickness you describe. In big business it gets broken up, either by intervention or by just firing everybody. This is far beyond just not working.
One paragraph of the resignation letter that shows it off spectacularly:
"On another occasion I asked your deputy why you didn’t conduct an evaluation by the Op-Divs of the immediate office administrative services to try to improve them. She responded that that had been tried a few years ago and the results were so negative that no further evaluations have been conducted."
So the person in charge says they tried to make it better years ago, but the environment was such a cesspool that they decided to not even bother trying to make it better.
How do you even...?
Correct, with decades of measurements it was estimated to be about 40 solar masses, but now that is being revised thanks to the smaller star.
It is shedding lots of mass and is not very compact, and appears to be fluctuating internally and exploding externally. It is likely near the end of its life. So the outer shell appears to be 1315 times the diameter of Sol, but coming in at 40 Msun most of that is probably fairly sparse.
Note that "end of its life" for a star is a really long time. At that size their life is relatively short for a star, about 5 million years, so it could possibly have a half million years left. Generations from now we could have interstellar ships visiting the star for additional research. I mean, even if it takes a thousand years for us to get the technology for fast interstellar travel plus the 12,000 light years of distance, the star will likely still be in its final stages. As for what will happen, nobody knows. It might collapse as a supernova, but astronomers can only speculate at the conditions that cause supernova; there have been no observed supernova in our galaxy since 1604, and the telescope data from that time doesn't exactly tell us details about the size and type of star involved. We can make educated guesses based on supernovae in distant galaxies, but those also are rather sparse on pre-collapse details.
Supernova is only one possible outcome. It might eventually become a blue supergiant. It might eventually become a blue variable. If it eventually collapses the mass is near enough the 40 Msun boundary that both neutron stars and black holes are possible options. If it eventually collapses to a black hole quickly it could skip the dramatic show, it would just visibly vanish. If it eventually collapses slowly a supernova is possible, as are less energetic options. There is even the option of a double collapse, first to neutron star then to black hole, which possibly could result in a hypernova. It is also possible that a series of partial collapses could cause pieces to explode and break up rather than collapse, making a fun fireworks show lasting for ages. But really there is insufficient data; there are not enough data points to know what is going to happen. It might be fun to speculate, but like most stars we probably won't see anything interesting happen in our lifetimes. With our measly 100 year lives we can only record the tiniest window of the lifetime of stars.
That binary system is going to make one heck of a supernova at some point in the distant future.
Maybe, probably not, but there is not enough data to know. It's been over four hundred years since the last recorded supernova in the Milky Way, and telescopes weren't that great in 1604. (Also the standard note about time and distance in astronomy, the star's light we see today is from about 12,000 years in our past. We cannot see today, we see the past.)
There is not enough data to say what will happen, and there are only a few major options for a star that size: partial collapse, full collapse, or ablation.
It might go through a series of partial collapses, with many small contractions end up ejecting huge chunks of the star, then re-expanding, and themselves re-exploding on their way out. This seems to be a fairly normal end-of-life pattern. Basically the core works like a fireworks launch platform as we see in summertime displays. Eventually the remaining core might be collapsed or not, but the show will be enjoyable. The result is a small nebula.
It might collapse into a neutron star. It might even collapse to a black hole. Either of these collapses MIGHT lead to a supernova, or maybe even a hypernova, or have a bunch of gamma bursts, or, most boring, nothing much at all; it just collapses with a (relatively mild compared to supernova) explosion and the outer layers blow away. Modern astronomers never seen it happen up close, so everything is a guess. Now that the partner is known people might be able to make a better guess, but it is still a guess. Depending on when it explodes, if ever, it will likely form a big nebula.
The actual article says the larger star is rapidly shedding mass. If it is throwing enough mass out fast enough (which will be affected by its binary partner) it will shrink enough to avoid a core collapse. In that case it will throw out a bunch of mass and in a few centuries appear as a small nebula.
But again we don't know what will happen because there are no similar data points. If you are looking for nearby stars to go supernova, there is a short list of known supernova candidates that we can watch. Otherwise the supernova we see are from distant galaxies where we can only speculate about.
I've wondered why more online educational institutions don't try something this, real groups that meet somewhere public to work through a course together. The aspect of being paired with a working programmer eventually is also a great advantage, but just having a group to work with would lead lot more people to have enough motivation to complete a class.
Some schools do. Back in my academic days in the 1990s, my school (a state university) partnered with the local AFB for such things. Some of the people in the lab spent half their day working on fighter jet programs and other systems on the base. In exchange a lot of people got recruited by the base and by the base's contractors as civilian programmers before graduation.
However, I note in the story that they businesses are looking for a specific class of programmers: The low-paid programmers who have enough background to be useful but not enough background to demand a high salary.
Specifically the businesses are looking for people with one year of training on how to use the language. Those who graduate from the program will likely enjoy a few years on the job --- probably paid a living wage for those few years --- and then will be dumped when they start asking for professional wages.
Contrary to what those business want you to believe, there is not a shortage of programmers. Instead, there is a mismatch between what the businesses want to pay versus what programmers believe they should earn. Skilled programmers provide valuable services, are very much white-collar workers, and are able to demand a high salary just like doctors, lawyers, pilots, architects, and other highly-trained, highly skilled professionals. Businesses who pay well have no difficulty finding skilled and talented programmers. Businesses who pay their programmers the same rate as their hourly call center workers, well, they get the quality they paid for.
Software runs the world. I wouldn't want a minimum-wage physician, or a minimum-wage airline pilot, or a building designed by a minimum-wage architect. I similarly wouldn't trust custom-built software written by minimum-wage programmers.
I'm confused, is it a "huge" cost, or a "non-zero" cost?
Both, because you need to multiply it by planes in service.
A few seconds on Google shows there are around 20,000 registered commercial airliners, and around 145,000 registered aircraft (including commercial aircraft, corporate jets, personal airplanes, military aircraft, and so on.) It doesn't include non-registered aircraft, of which there are many.
But the costs multiply. So when you start with $100K for the device plus installation, you are looking at $14B for the first pass. Then your small annual fee multiplies to perhaps fifty million every year in upkeep and service fees.
If you are talking about a major aircraft like a commercial B777 passenger craft, the installation and upkeep is relatively small. These massive aircraft are expensive to buy and maintain. The amortized cost per passenger over a year's flights is going to be a fraction of a cent.
When you are talking about smaller craft like the super common Cessna 172, the device is going to be about 1/4 of the cost of the airplane. All the little utility aircraft are the most common type of aircraft, even though most of us only associate airplanes with the giant cargo jets and passenger flights.
Ultimately let's assume they are looking around $14B initial investment plus $50M/year continuous cost. All of that money to get a little information once every few years when an airplane gets lost over the ocean. Is it worth it? Perhaps it is worth it for the large commercial passenger airlines, but not for all aircraft.
To me, the problem is that it breaks promise of neutrality, and deceives anyone who believes it's a neutral piece.
NPOV is a lofty goal, but not a firm promise. For niche fields it can be difficult or impossible to find enough sources to present a neutral view.
This is why Wikipedia policy prefers secondary sources but will still accept primary sources when few or none exist. The policy allows for the encyclopedia to have accurate information with proper references (yet written with a bias) rather than for the encyclopedia to have no information on the topic at all. The policy clearly allows articles written by the closely-affiliated experts citing only primary sources when the material is noteworthy. Such articles are less likely to be neutral, but they are still valuable.
There are broad topics that millions of people understand and sources are plentiful. These articles have no problem with NPOV. However, many articles are about niche fields or niche topics. Generally the experts in the field also work in the field. The experts on a particular business often work in that business. The experts on a specific technology often are intimately familiar with it.
Was probably a typo on the parent post. The stats more clearly stated:
South Africa has the highest rape statistics on the world.
Approximately 40% of women in the country are rape victims.
Approximately 30% of women are raped before they are 18.
Approximately 17% of girls are raped before age 10.
Approximately 25% of adult males openly admit to committing rape, mostly as gang rape
Approximately 10% of adult males admit to raping a child.
None of the things will protect against theft.
The thief will still pick your pocket. When they get back to their evil lair, they will find it is password protected. If they try to break the protection (which is easy with the right tools) they will find it is encrypted. Then they will trash the device or perhaps attempt to sell it. For you it doesn't matter, your device is still stolen and must be replaced.
There are tons of tools out there to make backups so restoration is easy on a new device. But your device is still stolen and must be replaced.
These people have access to all the modern conveniences via their jobs. They have chosen not to learn anything about them which would be O.K. if it wasn't critical to their job performance.
Actually the SCOTUS has shown they are more than willing to learn about something required for them to do their jobs.
Go back a few years when they had a specific case about video games and free speech in 2011. They set up a lab and played the ultra-violent games for a few days, both online and off, to help make a decision. (All of them agreed with the free speech, two dissented saying it was not regulating speech, but was regulating the sale of products.)
Historically the judges have been willing to get their hands dirty and view the gritty details when they are called to review them for a case. They have traveled to remote locations, dug through physical evidence, and gotten their hands dirty. They may not be hardcore gamers or telecom experts, but when it comes to ruling on the law they are making determinations based on the exact wording on the law. Such a decision can be made based on reviewing the facts, reviewing details provided by experts, and looking at the specific items enough to satisfy their opinions.
Sure, the data might be safe from a government's prying eyes, but will it be safe from a government who kindly pays for the data, with the company acquiescing between it wants to maintain its lucrative business links with the authorities?
FTFY
...that also has the power to jail anyone, including corporate executives, for undisclosed national security reasons and undisclosed duration if they fail to cooperate?
I think it's absolutely wrong to out someone who is actively trying to remain out of the spotlight
Let's say for argument sake that it is accurate. That is the bitcoin owner, who isn't spending any of the bitcoins.
The person does not want to talk about it. If he is serious about that, waving microphones in front of the man is NOT going to encourage him to be forthcoming with personal stories.
So what does it change? Nothing!
There is no benefit to anyone. Now if the guy wanted to open up and share stories, that is what the media is hungering for. But he isn't doing that.
The BEST thing the guy could do is say "Yes that is me. I have nothing more to say, and I don't think I ever will. Now get off my lawn." and then refuse to say anything more. In fact, judging by the story, that is EXACTLY what he did say. There is no story or controversy around it. This is just some guy who has access to something valuable.
Some of the media folk may want to ask him questions, hoping to make a buck when he shares a story, but if he chooses not to share anything they'll quickly lose interest when the next something shiny comes around.
is there some way that the real Satoshi could affirm his existence
Why?
What does it gain anybody?
Let's say that is the guy, he didn't lose the key, and he has access to a valuable resource. So what? I know several people who are fairly wealthy, their wealth does not define them, nor does it make them inherently powerful or anything. What is the point of having them prove their wealth to someone?
About the only thing anyone would want is to hear stories. No matter if that is the man or not, the real bitcoin owner does not want to share stories. Sticking microphones in his face and asking him questions about his life is unlikely to encourage him to share personal stories. There is nothing to gain by trying to point out that a person has a valuable object when the person has insisted for years they don't wish to discuss it.
The core components, such as Direct3D and DirectInput, are considered part of the operating system [microsoft.com]
Considering how they are tied to windows core components, I suppose there is a slim chance that Windows 7 SP2 could potentially include DX12 in it.
Of course, there is also a slim chance the Easter Bunny will bring me solid gold eggs and Santa will fill my stocking with hundred dollar bills. I'd much prefer either of those.
Better be for Windows 7 or devs will not use it
Perhaps you missed the announcements that have been coming from Redmond for nearly a decade. The core components, such as Direct3D and DirectInput, are considered part of the operating system .
Starting with Vista the version of DirectX is incremented with the version of the Windows SDK, and no back porting will take place. (powerpoint)
Since many people didn't catch it, they re-announced it with the platform update for WIndows 7: If you want DX11.1, you must get the service pack update .
The have already said announcement at GDC will not deviate their course; DirectX 12 is being announced late March as part of a series of press releases right before the new Windows SDK for the 8.1 Update is released in April. All of the updates are part of the Windows SDK for 8.1 Update. , much like the Windows 7 Update where they released a new Windows SDK to accompany it..
And a fifth time, just in case you missed it: Effective 2006, Microsoft has stopped distributing individual DirectX packages. It is now a core operating system component. They have not backported the drivers for nearly a decade, and they have repeatedly told people that the backports are gone. It will not be on Windows 7.
Got it? Can it be made more clear?
XP = DX9c. Vista = DX10. Vista SP1 = DX10.1. Vista SP2 = DX10.2. Win7 = DX11. WIn 7 SP1 = DX11.1. Win 8 = DX11.1. Win 8.1 = DX11.2. And now it looks like Win 8.1 SP1 = DX12. It really shouldn't be that difficult to grasp.