Agreed. He gets no benefit to attending. Even if he has an ideal performance on camera and everything works in his favor, his statements will still be misquoted, pulled out of context, twisted by many groups to fit their own agendas. More likely and typical, there will be small slips and gaffes which will appear on camera, and each one will be replayed in detail by anyone who dislikes him or the company.
He has nothing to gain, and potentially quite a lot to lose. If he is compelled to attend and give testimony he would do best to be boring, and deflect/minimize questions as being advised not to answer them.
I've worked at five game companies. Each one had strict policies against overtime. I have interviewed with probably 40 game companies and turned many down due to their clearly abusive policies.
At my current company when I came on on a Saturday to finish off some work, the following Monday my manager and the studio head invited me in to an impromptu meeting ('uh-oh') and asked me why I was there, what I was doing, and why I felt I needed to work on a weekend. They wanted to know if there was something going on with the project that they didn't know about, if there were hidden risks to success, and if there was anything that could jeopardize their strict goals to no overtime. They expressed that if people started coming in then some people would feel obligated, so if I decide to come in please don't send emails or check in code.
But I'm not a typical in that I've always looked for good businesses with great quality of life. When I interview I am careful to look for important details. Are there old people in the office, or all the all 20 or 30 years old? (Older workers are much less tolerant of the abuse.) Are there pictures of children on desks? (Parents are more likely to go home in evenings.) Are there signs that people work long hours like excessive food containers from 8 PM or 10 PM pizza boxes? (Again looking for signs people go home.) Are there a good mix of genders programmers are about 80/20 split of men/women? (Women are less likely to put with the hours because of children.) And importantly: Ask what their policy is for overtime. If they hem and haw, or suggest that sometimes they do it but it isn't abusive, that's a sign. Another good question: Has anyone here ever reached retirement? It is an extremely rare thing in game studios, but I've had retirement parties.
I worked at one company where I suspect the average age was mid-50. The office was filled with people for 9:00 meetings, and many chairs were empty around 4:30 in the afternoon. These were highly productive offices, and we were using all the latest technologies. Layoffs were virtually non-existent, and the hiring process was long and involved. I left to pursue a team lead position --- the downside of people staying forever with slow growth is that upward mobility is difficult --- but the workplace itself was amazing, well paid, and well-behaved.
If a place is bad, stop working work there. If they require it (or indirectly "everybody will be there, but you can miss it if you must") that's a sign to move on.
The abusive companies tend to hire lots of workers and fire lots of workers. The high turnover means it is easy to get the job. The good companies are extremely selective about who they hire. They may interview 20 potential candidates and not hire one. They have low turnover because people don't want to leave, they'll mostly only leave to move up the ladder since there is so little upward motion there. The companies are harder to find but they exist.
When it comes to policy (government, business, whatever) I have two questions: (1) What specific problem is it trying to solve, and (2) will the policy actually solve the problem.
I'm not sure what the "punks with drones" in your neighborhoods are doing, but it does feel like that's the biggest set of problems. "Punks with drones" brings up images of people who are ignorant of the risks or problems, and also people who intentionally or maliciously use their aircraft for things like dive-bombing people or to otherwise annoy or harass. Since the law has now actually passed, it's a matter of looking at what it does.
Going through the list in the law, I think the rules mostly address actual problems, but introduce many of their own.
Item 1 on the law brings back the "strictly recreational purposes" rule, which was the source of several lawsuits that brought about the earlier policy. Now that it is back you can be sure lawsuits will follow it. Landscapers, survey crews, and similar workers lose a valuable tool but they weren't a problem before. Photographers and journalists lose the exemption although some of them were "punks with drones", some were not. Community search and rescue groups lose the exemption and they definitely weren't a problem. These eight words are highly problematic.
Line of sight restrictions are trying to solve a real problem, but the wording change is heavy-handed and sloppy. I have two aerial hobbies, and have had words with drone pilots who were beyond trees, flying their aircraft in areas that were still inside their line of sight above the tree line, but not where they could see the surrounding areas and couldn't see the dangers. I have been overflown, sometimes dangerously close, by pilots who were buzzing what they saw was the tree line, flying at the edge of their visibility. Their dangerous flight still meets the requirements of line of sight but they had no idea how close they were to causing major damage. Contrast with craft with cameras that grant a good view of the entire area yet fly out of direct line of sight. Even though the pilot might not see the craft, they have high visibility of their environment. There are far better solutions than the 28-word section of the policy.
Not interfering with manned aircraft, not interfering with established flight zones, and limits to height are all known-good solutions and were part of the old policy. Those solve real problems, both for other aircraft and for people on the ground. Many air fields (including model aircraft shows) have boundaries, and sadly many pilots (including those who know better) violate the boundaries and risk the safety of others. There is no bright line to know you've crossed the boundary, and it sadly needs better enforcement.
The rule about passing a safety test and maintaining "proof of test passage" to be displayed on request (i.e. must carry a license) doesn't seem to solve an actual problem. Those licenses require many hours of training, plus a few hundred bucks for the tests. The cheap little whirlygigs and palm-sized quad-copters really are children's toys and shouldn't need the license, but the policy includes them. Larger craft that cost thousands of dollars could reasonably require some training because they can easily cause serious damage and personal harm, HOWEVER, those pilots tend to get training because a crash is expensive and most people don't start with one of these. I don't know if a requirement to carrying a license that can be given to law enforcement on request is the right solution, but it doesn't feel like it. Time will tell, it might help with the "punks with drone" problem you describe, but I doubt it. Instead it will mean outlaws have drones because near-everybody is an outlaw.
The proof of registration is for tax revenue. It doesn't solve a real problem, it's just feeding the coffers. There are currently more than one million of these craft currently registered. Registration used to be mandatory but free. Now it is mandatory and paid. Some gov
Mass murder isn't terrorism. At least, not according to the definition of terrorism that's been in place for two centuries. No political motivation == not terrorism.
If you use the definition of terrorism that became popular over the last 17 years and is constantly repeated by the talking heads, one that terrorism is anything that makes people afraid, then yes, that's all the popular media outlets. People collectively are cowards.
If you use the definition of terrorism that's been used for nearly two centuries, which is "the use of violence to induce governmental or political change", then no, actual terrorism will continue to be quite rare.
Legal constructs haven't changed to the recent social redefinition. Terrorism laws across the globe still have definitions that require a motive of political change. It doesn't matter how scary it is or how many people were frightened, if it wasn't for a political motive then it isn't terrorism. At least, not the terrorism that the word has nearly always meant.
If the ISP has too much traffic they need to ask their users to stop asking for it.
Close. If the ISP has too much traffic they need to look at their contracts and service agreements. They can accommodate the traffic which may mean infrastructure upgrades, which translate to costs and potentially rate increases for the consumer. Or they can use their service agreements to reduce traffic. ISPs tend to do both, and customers dislike it but are willing to pay more money for a better connection. Since all of those requirements are set through contracts, it often comes to contract changes.
If customers at higher speeds really are incurring a higher cost, change the cost for the connection type. If you charge a standard rate for connection type then you get the connection regardless of if you are watching Netflix, or Hulu, or porn, or Disney, or ESPN. If you've got a 100 megabit connection you get the same the same connection regardless of if you are shopping or studying or playing or chatting or telecommuting. The customer paid for the service and it should be provided. If the nature of traffic means people with high-speed connections need to pay more in aggregate, increase the rates for the connection type.
The corresponding big problem comes from geographic monopolies. When a second vendor comes in and can offer similar service at a lower prices, the prices from major ISPs plummet. Ask anyone who lives in a Google Fiber city about that. Without meaningful competition it is an exercise in profiteering, it is about extracting the maximum amount of money rather than the actual cost of services. Sadly that is also the status quo. If it really does cost a certain amount for the service then competition will lower the prices down toward the actual costs and consumers can take it or leave it. But without actual competition it is instead about how high the prices can go without triggering a revolt.
Why only list entertainment on consumable and transitory things? The category also includes things like food, clothing, medicine, and transportation. It also includes costs of rented things, like rented housing versus home ownership, and the cost of loans and interest.
You're right that the upper echelons have more discretion to where they put it, they have the option to put it into income-generating and growth-generating items instead of consumable. To be sure they'll still buy more consumables, but they have the option to buy things that grow. The farther down the totem pole people get, the less of that option people have. Some have a small portion on the top, like a small amount of profit generated from selling food, but selling them is a wealth-gathering exercise to those who own the business already.
And that's the crux of the cycle. If you are poor you remain poor, you cannot cross that gap, you cannot buy a home but must rent housing, you cannot buy value-generating or value-retaining things because they are too expensive, you must rent where the value goes to someone else. If you are wealthy you can buy more of those things that further generate wealth, buy another home or even buy an apartment complex to rent out, letting the wealthy capture even more in successive rounds.
Last time you went to a restaurant, how did you tip?
Nothing at all.
Many places around the globe pay wait staff a livable wage and tips aren't expected or required. If service was truly outstanding or there is a reason I feel the need to pay extra I might, but otherwise no.
If you follow news sites, economists agree with you. There is not yet a real general labor shortage.
Just like so many other recent labor shortages, and just like the H1B visa debacles, the shortage is in people wanting to work for the rates offered. Companies can create hundreds of job postings for less than people are willing to work, but that doesn't mean the company has a true shortage. It does mean that if the companies keep scraping the bottom of the employment barrel they're finding fewer people willing to take those jobs. Last year the consumer price index (inflation) went up almost 3%, and for the first time since about 1969 have wages increased slightly faster than inflation for multiple years in a row.
Businesses have enjoyed the benefits of wage stagnation for too many decades. The last time purchasing power consistently went up across the nation ran from the end of the Great Depression in the 1930s all the way through the 1960s. The ratio hit a peak in about 1969, stabilized a little lower through the decade, fell sharply at the end of the 1970s, and the ratio has been flat ever since. For a half century the relative purchasing power for nearly everybody has been stagnant. Wages have gone up, but generally on par or less than inflation. Occasionally an industry will have a shortage and wages will trend upward, but it hasn't been broad.
As the better workplaces have known for ages, raise the salary offers and you'll have no shortage of willing workers. Even at the low end, locally we've got stores with great reputations, they visibly post wages they pay, and they've got no shortage of workers. One great chain of gas stations posts that all cashiers start at $12/hr (regionally other places have ads for $8 or so). A fast food restaurant has similar $12 or $12.50 rates with no experience. When I looked in to them they all said they've got strict rules including drug testing and background checks, and no visible tattoos, but workers get a >50% pay increase over what they get elsewhere and the company gets a much better wage slave.
If we see true labor shortages then wages will increase more broadly. This might be happening, and since we're seeing wages outpace inflation (by a fraction of a percent) for multiple years now there is some hope for those who otherwise work in low-skill jobs.
Partly true. That's the fourth agile pillar of responsiveness is more important than strict adherence.
I try an analogy of travel plans for a large group event. Building a big travel plan for everybody to get to the party won't work: people are coming from all places, some from home, some from work, some from distant cities. Instead, clearly communicate the destination and let each traveler be responsible for getting there.
Agile software DOES need planning. Everybody needs to understand what the destination is going to be. However, the plan needs to be flexible, responding to changes versus following the plan.
When you're driving and you encounter construction you don't follow your GPS's directions to drive through the construction barrier or off the cliff. You reroute because you value responding to change over following the plan and you understand that sometimes you need to deviate from the plan. But that doesn't mean you ignore your final destination. You may not follow your planned route but your destination remains the same.
Going through the manifesto... (1) We want everyone to be at the destination, and we care more about the fact that the people are treated as people than that they be there; if someone needs accommodations we make the accommodations because people are more important than process. (2) We want to make sure we have the destination. If the event were a big party it would suck if everyone got there and we discovered a a bunch of todo items like "rent the venue" and "hire the caterers". The plans are nice, but we need to actually make progress toward the destination rather than just making progress towards plans. (3) Helping people get to the destination is more important than details of how they get there. If individuals have different needs in order to get to the event, try to accommodate those needs. (4) We should help people reach the destination following whatever route works for them. If they need to change their route to reach the destination we should help them.
All of this is predicated on having a clear destination that everyone understands. When I've seen Agile fail that's been the biggest failing, there was no shared understanding of what was expected. When I've seen Agile succeed it was when everyone (or at least the key people) had a clear shared vision of the destination.
Then stop being a bunch of cheap ass conservatives.
No need to bring in politics, that spans the entire conservative/liberal spectrum.
Everybody wants a good deal. Everybody likes a bargain. It always stings to find out you paid more for something than what other people paid. In government work it isn't just partisan politics and the too-frequent blind hatred of the other side, even on projects a person personally supports it is angering to learn more money was spent than was necessary. It has nothing to do with if the person is conservative or liberal.
There is stealing tech like you described, and stealing tech like China is doing it.
Industrial espionage is basically the acceptable form of doing it. If you can slip someone into the company, sneak up to the golden goose, and get out, that's a corporate success story. Alternatively if you can hire away their workers, or if you can reverse engineer technology, those are also generally acceptable. The goods are still protected by assorted laws, but if you can sneak some information out that's generally accepted.
China's form is a mandate that every company doing business turns over the golden goose outright. If you want to do business in China you must turn over the technology, and you must pass along ownership to a mandatory Chinese business partner. Many times the mandated business partner takes the IP and makes their own products from it. They aren't adapting it, nor growing from it, nor trying to integrate it into their own. The law requires corporations give up their secrets, then those secrets are directly used against the corporation.
Not that it matters. I suspect the ruling will be that general game mechanics are not protected by copyright law.
I'm reading through the complaint right now, it looks like that's the situation. Most are scène à faire look-and-feel elements and gameplay elements, neither are protected. The trade dress claims are based on scène à faire (standard elements for the style of game) elements.
Reading through it, there are: Look and feel of pre-game lobby, islands with bridges, towns, farms, rural and urban areas, battlefield noises, weapons and armor, these are all scène à faire. Others are non-protectable gameplay elements: airplane jump to choose starting location, shrinking combat zone to force players together as more are eliminated, equipment acquisition over the course of the game, weapons and armor stats, the use of backpacks, consumables, health bars, etc.
There have been strong suits for this before, like The Sims Online v. The Ville. That one had strong claims where the side-by-side images had RGB-identical colors and pixel-identical placement for user interfaces, and item-for-item duplicates of traits. That was a strong suit when you could see they were side-by side identical. Here the images are like both games have soldiers in combat and both have maps, and both games have buildings. The defense there is easy to claim as scène à faire, just present screen captures from a hundred other fighting games in the same situations. They could probably pull out near-identical images from thousands games that all pre-dated PUBG.
The frying pan is probably the most iconic in their claims, but even that is easy enough to explain away with an enormous amount of prior art as a comedic weapon: Recent movies like Disney's Tangled, or going back Austin Powers, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and hundreds more. Even Mary Poppins from the 1960's had the cook wield a frying pan when she thought the house was being invaded. Frying pans as weapons have been standard in books for centuries, including the old Sherlock Holmes a century ago. I wouldn't be surprised if some Shakespeare comedies involve a wielded pan.
PUBG has no case here.
There may be a little bit of wrangling, but likely the mutual investors of both companies will order them to stop bickering and the case will wither. PUBG's numbers have been dropping, but it isn't due to copyright infringement.
It never hurts to own the people who are making the laws
There is a principle about business I learned decades ago: Give campaign donations to the political parties in power. Since they change frequently, give small but regular campaign donations to all the politicians.
This happens from the smallest mom-and-pop shops up through the megacorps. If you eventually want a favor --- and the larger the company is the more favors it wants --- you can point out that you've been a contributor to their campaigns for many years. The business doesn't have to agree with their policies nor even like the person. It also doesn't need to be much. For a local business it might be $10 per year to each group, so perhaps $100/year total. For some influence at the state level perhaps $1000 spread around 20 people and groups. Small investment each year for the ability to say "You can see in the books I've given you money for fifteen years, I'd like some help with a political problem...".
Give to all the political parties over your geographical control, and you'll have a say in policy. Call it owning them, call it influence, call it gaining some power over your destiny. Whatever you call it, millennia of history show consistently putting a small amount to all the politicians is a wise business move.
That's actually one of many identified potential problems of self-driving cars: Attackers pull the vehicle over with blinking lights then go after the occupant with whatever attack they want.
Then you've got physical issues. Medical problems with the driver, remotely delivering a bomb, intentionally disabling sensors at a critical moment, and so many more.
Another major side effect will be the drop in organ transplants since car crashes account for about 1/5 of all organ donations, which has been discussed in depth on/. several times.
Half-witted drivers must have learned to see in the dark.
When I watch it, the first moment I can see the pedestrian is the light shoes at the very end of 0:06 into the clip. In the one they released with the computer's response (my Google search is failing me for finding it) the computer slammed on brakes about a quarter second before that moment, when the pedestrian was just about to enter the lane.
It seems that way, but I'm not sure why it should be.... I think I could make that pretty obvious to most people, even a judge.
Unfortunately it often isn't. The initial judge learned to program so he could understand the case. He admitted his learning was rudimentary, but enough to understand what was going on. The appeals judges did not and that has been a point of contention. The only one in the legal system who learned to program was the trial court judge, and he threw out most of the arguments as a result. The appeals courts and the solicitor general have made their decisions without that, and Google's appeals say the knowledge is imperative.
If judges don't know enough to make a properly informed decision and they cannot gain that knowledge from case law and subject experts, it is their duty to gain that knowledge. There have been judges who took up hiking in dangerous situations, visited a wide range of locations from pig farms to remote deadly roadways, and studied arcane subjects in order to make a fair judgement.
Note that the first time around the question was split into three parts: copyright, patent, and damages. The judge learned how to program. In trials there are question of law and questions of fact; the judge decides questions of law and the jury decides questions of fact. The judge ruled from his experience learning to code that many of Oracle's claims were invalid on their face, and didn't allow them to go to the jury trial. The declaration was that "it does not matter that the declaration or or method header lines are identical," even though Oracle decided they were. The non-programmer appeals court judges reversed the decision. The Solicitor General (who also doesn't know how to program) recommended against a SCOTUS ruling at the time, letting it go back to the lower courts for further defense.
It headed back to the lower court for this second round. The judge and the jury decided there should be no damages because of the fair use exception in copyright law. The jury included people who knew how to program, and they decided it was perfectly legal due to fair use. Now the appeals judges (who still don't know anything about programming) is countermanding the jury's findings, which rarely happens.
Google should absolutely appeal. The next level is the full en banc review. They asked earlier for members of the three judge panel to learn to code, but they apparently did not convince them. Their lawyers should (and I'm sure they are) using that fact in their appeals. While the judges are comfortable enough with books and movies to apply copyright law in those cases, they can argue that unlike the trial court judge who learned to program to answer the questions, the appeals judges did not have a sufficient understanding to make these determinations, thus even though they understood the wording of law they still committed an error of judgement by failing to fully understand the content of the case.
If you disagree don't bother debating with me, I'm not listening.
Ah, the closed minded approach.
For those on/. who ARE willing to listen, the point is not for self-driving cars to be perfect. Real-world scenarios suggest that a zero-crash world is virtually impossible.
What we need are for self-driving vehicles to be far safer than human-driven vehicles, not necessarily zero crashes. And so far, that has proven to be the case. Right now there are about 32,000 fatalities in car crashes across the US every year. Even if that number were reduced to 20,000 fatalities it would be well worth it in lives saved; it is quite likely if all cars were replaced the fatalities could be reduced from thirty thousand to a few hundred per year. Some would still die but it would be a tiny fraction of those who die under human control.
In this crash the company and police released videos and telemetry. The video shows a jaywalker at night walking their bike (which has no reflectors or lights) across an unlit road after coming out from behind a shrub and small metal fence (about the same density and radar reflectivity as a bike) in the median. The computer's radar identified the moving obstruction and slammed on the brakes about 200 milliseconds before I could see anything in the unlit patch. No human could have seen the pedestrian in time to apply the brakes. If they did notice, many people in high speed collisions will swerve and roll their vehicle as well. The computer managed to apply the brakes, but also realized it could not avoid the pedestrian by swerving, nor could it stop the vehicle from highway speeds in that distance despite slamming on the brakes.
Even though the jaywalker died, the computer still reacted faster and more accurately than any human could. The computer identified and was reacting (including realizing swerving would not help) before there was anything visible to the human eye.
Tragic as her death was, it was caused by physics of speed and the jaywalker's choice to cross in an unlit area, walking from behind a shrub, directly in front of a high-velocity car that was completely visible if they looked to their right. Neither a human driver nor computer driver could compensate for the jaywalker's fatal choice.
in your case, a US judge can certainly order a US entity to do something which would violate another countries laws, and its up to the entity themselves to resolve that conflict.
Which is exactly what they're doing here.
Go read the legal briefs submitted by various nations and international organizations. The European Commission, the government of the United Kingdom, the government of Ireland, the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe, the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the French Department of Business, and even the United Nations legal arm for data privacy. All of them said that if the US enforced the order they'd be violating all kinds of international, law, including violating treaties made by the US government. The Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, MLAT, provides a method to get the data legally.
Urgent MLAT requests are handled immediately. Ireland has already said if the DoJ filed an MLAT request they would act immediately. But the DoJ is looking for powers that bypass judicial review and international legal review. It is a power grab, which they readily admit in the transcript linked to above. Scroll down to page 23 when asked why they can't use MLAT requests.
It is rather terrifying that they are so brazen about it in the SCOTUS arguments. They state that they could use MLAT, but they want the ability to bypass the courts; if they win the precedent: "We don't have to go to a court first. We just issue the instrument. The provider has to make disclosures."
The list of amici curiae is impressive. The European Commission, the government of the United Kingdom, the government of Ireland, the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe, the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the French Department of Business, and even the United Nations legal arm for data privacy. All of them said that if the US enforced the order they'd be violating all kinds of international, law, including violating treaties made by the US regarding preserving privacy of some of the information the government is demanding. The Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, MLAT,
They also all state point #2 that you made, which is the same thing Microsoft says: There is already a procedure for this, done through international treaty, by filing an MLAT request. The procedure is followed all the time and does not take years like the federal government is suggesting. Nations have a solid history of acting on urgent request immediately, generally as soon as the call or email or request is made. Ireland's government has stated at every level of the case that they would immediately act on the request if the justice department would follow the international treaties that are already in place.
The government lawyer stated EXACTLY the reason they want this on page 23 of the transcript. Justice Alito asked why the government didn't use any of the conventional methods to get the data. Government's reply: "We don't have to go to a court first. We just issue the instrument. The provider has to make disclosures. " They freely admit that this is an attempt to grab information in a way that bypasses the courts, bypasses international treaties and MLAT requirements and extraterritorial law, and bypasses the US due process requirements. It is nothing more or less than a power grab to bypass legal protections.
It looks like California's law attempts to regulate the businesses directly.
The versions in New York and Montana are different, they deal with the state's business agreements. That is, if the company doesn't stand by the same net neutrality rules the state will stop the business.
Montana certainly isn't a big state for funding and they said they've got about $50M in contracts. Losing that much business wouldn't directly hurt AT&T or similar companies, but awarding a $50M contract plus rollout costs across the state to a smaller company -- probably an in-state company -- would create a strong competitor to the existing duopoly. As the small companies tend to be more friendly with leased line provisions the large telecos know they'd quickly lose business to a large percentage of the state.
I draw, but abandoned hope of being professional artist after art classes. I can draw human bodies, clothes, and all other human anatomy details just fine. But I have to leave faces blank.
I have studied faces for years. I've had teachers try to help me, but faces never turned out. When I work from an image from a face and hold it right next to the drawing I can put together a portrait but it takes a long time. Usually I must go through carefully memorized rules: circle, square and thirds to position features; eye gap of one eye wide for the nose; pupil distance equal mouth distance; ear locations relative to eyes and nose; chin shape and jowls based on gender and weight; planes of nose, mouth, cheeks, and eyes for detail placement and shading. I build up the entire face through memorized rules, but for every other non-facial feature I can draw by following the curves, key points, memory, and understanding of anatomy.
I am often told the face doesn't look quite right, but everything else looks perfect.
When others are sketching faces by memory, I have to tediously measure specific details; the nose is slightly wider than their eye distance rule, the lips are narrower than the rule, their chin is particularly large and pronounced, and so on. I memorize faces by how they differ from the rules, not by what faces actually look like. When I'm done, I have no idea how close I've come to the actual recognizable face, and need to ask, "Do you think this look like the person?" If I'm lucky I don't have to ask, I'll be asked "Is that a drawing of {famous person}?"
That is in addition to frequent social gaffes. I know a person, I can talk about what they've done and their relationships to others. But on many occasions I've asked questions like "How do you feel about {person}'s performance?" or "What do you think of {person}'s presentation?", only to have that be the person in question. I've met people in the park and I think "I think I know that person", they walk up and greet me by name; when I tell them I'm having trouble with their name, they tell me and I suddenly realize we've been on the same team at work for six months.
Even so, when I asked my doctor about it, he said it was probably just normal variation, some people are better at it than others...
For the time dilation, I love the example of bouncing a ball off the wall.
Imagine sitting in a room where a person tosses a ball against the wall, has it bounce back, and catches it.
The person bouncing the ball will have the same experience no matter how fast they are traveling. If they are traveling very slowly compared to the speed of light it will bounce off the wall exactly as you predict. If they are traveling on a train or airplane at a steady speed, they can bounce the ball and it will happen the same. If they are travelling at enormous velocity, it will appear the same. If they are traveling at nearly the speed of light they can continue to bounce the ball and it will travel exactly the same.
However, because of the absolute speed limit of the speed of light, time would need to dilate for the faster-moving ball. The relative speed of time itself changes when approaching the speed of light.
I think the two of you are talking past each other. The current precedent is that the seller must have a presence in that state to deal with that state's taxes. If they don't have anything to do with the state already, only putting the address on the package, they don't need to worry about it.
If the seller has a presence in the same state as the buyer, then the seller collects sales tax and reports it to the state. They would already do that anyway, so not a big deal to require it.
If the seller does not have a presence in the same state as the buyer, then the seller does not do anything regarding the taxes in the buyer's state, they can ship without collecting their state taxes. The state can require the individual to file a "use tax", but the seller is under no obligation.
The case is about South Dakota wanting businesses that have nothing to do with the state, that have no presence in the state, that have never done any paperwork to do business within the state, to be obligated to file paperwork and other filings to South Dakota. In short order this means every retailer in the country will need to file reports with all 50 states if they have anybody who lives out of their states. This is the burden the SCOTUS said they were trying to avoid with the last ruling.
Amazon is one of only a handful of major companies that could handle the paperwork for all states without a massive burden. Even they're gaining physical presence in many states through their acquisitions and growth. I cannot think of other major online retailers who don't have a sales presence in most states already.
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Agreed. He gets no benefit to attending. Even if he has an ideal performance on camera and everything works in his favor, his statements will still be misquoted, pulled out of context, twisted by many groups to fit their own agendas. More likely and typical, there will be small slips and gaffes which will appear on camera, and each one will be replayed in detail by anyone who dislikes him or the company.
He has nothing to gain, and potentially quite a lot to lose. If he is compelled to attend and give testimony he would do best to be boring, and deflect/minimize questions as being advised not to answer them.
It is the company, not the industry.
I've worked at five game companies. Each one had strict policies against overtime. I have interviewed with probably 40 game companies and turned many down due to their clearly abusive policies.
At my current company when I came on on a Saturday to finish off some work, the following Monday my manager and the studio head invited me in to an impromptu meeting ('uh-oh') and asked me why I was there, what I was doing, and why I felt I needed to work on a weekend. They wanted to know if there was something going on with the project that they didn't know about, if there were hidden risks to success, and if there was anything that could jeopardize their strict goals to no overtime. They expressed that if people started coming in then some people would feel obligated, so if I decide to come in please don't send emails or check in code.
But I'm not a typical in that I've always looked for good businesses with great quality of life. When I interview I am careful to look for important details. Are there old people in the office, or all the all 20 or 30 years old? (Older workers are much less tolerant of the abuse.) Are there pictures of children on desks? (Parents are more likely to go home in evenings.) Are there signs that people work long hours like excessive food containers from 8 PM or 10 PM pizza boxes? (Again looking for signs people go home.) Are there a good mix of genders programmers are about 80/20 split of men/women? (Women are less likely to put with the hours because of children.) And importantly: Ask what their policy is for overtime. If they hem and haw, or suggest that sometimes they do it but it isn't abusive, that's a sign. Another good question: Has anyone here ever reached retirement? It is an extremely rare thing in game studios, but I've had retirement parties.
I worked at one company where I suspect the average age was mid-50. The office was filled with people for 9:00 meetings, and many chairs were empty around 4:30 in the afternoon. These were highly productive offices, and we were using all the latest technologies. Layoffs were virtually non-existent, and the hiring process was long and involved. I left to pursue a team lead position --- the downside of people staying forever with slow growth is that upward mobility is difficult --- but the workplace itself was amazing, well paid, and well-behaved.
If a place is bad, stop working work there. If they require it (or indirectly "everybody will be there, but you can miss it if you must") that's a sign to move on.
The abusive companies tend to hire lots of workers and fire lots of workers. The high turnover means it is easy to get the job. The good companies are extremely selective about who they hire. They may interview 20 potential candidates and not hire one. They have low turnover because people don't want to leave, they'll mostly only leave to move up the ladder since there is so little upward motion there. The companies are harder to find but they exist.
When it comes to policy (government, business, whatever) I have two questions: (1) What specific problem is it trying to solve, and (2) will the policy actually solve the problem.
I'm not sure what the "punks with drones" in your neighborhoods are doing, but it does feel like that's the biggest set of problems. "Punks with drones" brings up images of people who are ignorant of the risks or problems, and also people who intentionally or maliciously use their aircraft for things like dive-bombing people or to otherwise annoy or harass. Since the law has now actually passed, it's a matter of looking at what it does.
Going through the list in the law, I think the rules mostly address actual problems, but introduce many of their own.
Item 1 on the law brings back the "strictly recreational purposes" rule, which was the source of several lawsuits that brought about the earlier policy. Now that it is back you can be sure lawsuits will follow it. Landscapers, survey crews, and similar workers lose a valuable tool but they weren't a problem before. Photographers and journalists lose the exemption although some of them were "punks with drones", some were not. Community search and rescue groups lose the exemption and they definitely weren't a problem. These eight words are highly problematic.
Line of sight restrictions are trying to solve a real problem, but the wording change is heavy-handed and sloppy. I have two aerial hobbies, and have had words with drone pilots who were beyond trees, flying their aircraft in areas that were still inside their line of sight above the tree line, but not where they could see the surrounding areas and couldn't see the dangers. I have been overflown, sometimes dangerously close, by pilots who were buzzing what they saw was the tree line, flying at the edge of their visibility. Their dangerous flight still meets the requirements of line of sight but they had no idea how close they were to causing major damage. Contrast with craft with cameras that grant a good view of the entire area yet fly out of direct line of sight. Even though the pilot might not see the craft, they have high visibility of their environment. There are far better solutions than the 28-word section of the policy.
Not interfering with manned aircraft, not interfering with established flight zones, and limits to height are all known-good solutions and were part of the old policy. Those solve real problems, both for other aircraft and for people on the ground. Many air fields (including model aircraft shows) have boundaries, and sadly many pilots (including those who know better) violate the boundaries and risk the safety of others. There is no bright line to know you've crossed the boundary, and it sadly needs better enforcement.
The rule about passing a safety test and maintaining "proof of test passage" to be displayed on request (i.e. must carry a license) doesn't seem to solve an actual problem. Those licenses require many hours of training, plus a few hundred bucks for the tests. The cheap little whirlygigs and palm-sized quad-copters really are children's toys and shouldn't need the license, but the policy includes them. Larger craft that cost thousands of dollars could reasonably require some training because they can easily cause serious damage and personal harm, HOWEVER, those pilots tend to get training because a crash is expensive and most people don't start with one of these. I don't know if a requirement to carrying a license that can be given to law enforcement on request is the right solution, but it doesn't feel like it. Time will tell, it might help with the "punks with drone" problem you describe, but I doubt it. Instead it will mean outlaws have drones because near-everybody is an outlaw.
The proof of registration is for tax revenue. It doesn't solve a real problem, it's just feeding the coffers. There are currently more than one million of these craft currently registered. Registration used to be mandatory but free. Now it is mandatory and paid. Some gov
Mass murder isn't terrorism. At least, not according to the definition of terrorism that's been in place for two centuries. No political motivation == not terrorism.
Depends on your definition of terrorism.
If you use the definition of terrorism that became popular over the last 17 years and is constantly repeated by the talking heads, one that terrorism is anything that makes people afraid, then yes, that's all the popular media outlets. People collectively are cowards.
If you use the definition of terrorism that's been used for nearly two centuries, which is "the use of violence to induce governmental or political change", then no, actual terrorism will continue to be quite rare.
Legal constructs haven't changed to the recent social redefinition. Terrorism laws across the globe still have definitions that require a motive of political change. It doesn't matter how scary it is or how many people were frightened, if it wasn't for a political motive then it isn't terrorism. At least, not the terrorism that the word has nearly always meant.
If the ISP has too much traffic they need to ask their users to stop asking for it.
Close. If the ISP has too much traffic they need to look at their contracts and service agreements. They can accommodate the traffic which may mean infrastructure upgrades, which translate to costs and potentially rate increases for the consumer. Or they can use their service agreements to reduce traffic. ISPs tend to do both, and customers dislike it but are willing to pay more money for a better connection. Since all of those requirements are set through contracts, it often comes to contract changes.
If customers at higher speeds really are incurring a higher cost, change the cost for the connection type. If you charge a standard rate for connection type then you get the connection regardless of if you are watching Netflix, or Hulu, or porn, or Disney, or ESPN. If you've got a 100 megabit connection you get the same the same connection regardless of if you are shopping or studying or playing or chatting or telecommuting. The customer paid for the service and it should be provided. If the nature of traffic means people with high-speed connections need to pay more in aggregate, increase the rates for the connection type.
The corresponding big problem comes from geographic monopolies. When a second vendor comes in and can offer similar service at a lower prices, the prices from major ISPs plummet. Ask anyone who lives in a Google Fiber city about that. Without meaningful competition it is an exercise in profiteering, it is about extracting the maximum amount of money rather than the actual cost of services. Sadly that is also the status quo. If it really does cost a certain amount for the service then competition will lower the prices down toward the actual costs and consumers can take it or leave it. But without actual competition it is instead about how high the prices can go without triggering a revolt.
Why only list entertainment on consumable and transitory things? The category also includes things like food, clothing, medicine, and transportation. It also includes costs of rented things, like rented housing versus home ownership, and the cost of loans and interest.
You're right that the upper echelons have more discretion to where they put it, they have the option to put it into income-generating and growth-generating items instead of consumable. To be sure they'll still buy more consumables, but they have the option to buy things that grow. The farther down the totem pole people get, the less of that option people have. Some have a small portion on the top, like a small amount of profit generated from selling food, but selling them is a wealth-gathering exercise to those who own the business already.
And that's the crux of the cycle. If you are poor you remain poor, you cannot cross that gap, you cannot buy a home but must rent housing, you cannot buy value-generating or value-retaining things because they are too expensive, you must rent where the value goes to someone else. If you are wealthy you can buy more of those things that further generate wealth, buy another home or even buy an apartment complex to rent out, letting the wealthy capture even more in successive rounds.
Last time you went to a restaurant, how did you tip?
Nothing at all.
Many places around the globe pay wait staff a livable wage and tips aren't expected or required. If service was truly outstanding or there is a reason I feel the need to pay extra I might, but otherwise no.
If you follow news sites, economists agree with you. There is not yet a real general labor shortage.
Just like so many other recent labor shortages, and just like the H1B visa debacles, the shortage is in people wanting to work for the rates offered. Companies can create hundreds of job postings for less than people are willing to work, but that doesn't mean the company has a true shortage. It does mean that if the companies keep scraping the bottom of the employment barrel they're finding fewer people willing to take those jobs. Last year the consumer price index (inflation) went up almost 3%, and for the first time since about 1969 have wages increased slightly faster than inflation for multiple years in a row.
Businesses have enjoyed the benefits of wage stagnation for too many decades. The last time purchasing power consistently went up across the nation ran from the end of the Great Depression in the 1930s all the way through the 1960s. The ratio hit a peak in about 1969, stabilized a little lower through the decade, fell sharply at the end of the 1970s, and the ratio has been flat ever since. For a half century the relative purchasing power for nearly everybody has been stagnant. Wages have gone up, but generally on par or less than inflation. Occasionally an industry will have a shortage and wages will trend upward, but it hasn't been broad.
As the better workplaces have known for ages, raise the salary offers and you'll have no shortage of willing workers. Even at the low end, locally we've got stores with great reputations, they visibly post wages they pay, and they've got no shortage of workers. One great chain of gas stations posts that all cashiers start at $12/hr (regionally other places have ads for $8 or so). A fast food restaurant has similar $12 or $12.50 rates with no experience. When I looked in to them they all said they've got strict rules including drug testing and background checks, and no visible tattoos, but workers get a >50% pay increase over what they get elsewhere and the company gets a much better wage slave.
If we see true labor shortages then wages will increase more broadly. This might be happening, and since we're seeing wages outpace inflation (by a fraction of a percent) for multiple years now there is some hope for those who otherwise work in low-skill jobs.
Partly true. That's the fourth agile pillar of responsiveness is more important than strict adherence.
I try an analogy of travel plans for a large group event. Building a big travel plan for everybody to get to the party won't work: people are coming from all places, some from home, some from work, some from distant cities. Instead, clearly communicate the destination and let each traveler be responsible for getting there.
Agile software DOES need planning. Everybody needs to understand what the destination is going to be. However, the plan needs to be flexible, responding to changes versus following the plan.
When you're driving and you encounter construction you don't follow your GPS's directions to drive through the construction barrier or off the cliff. You reroute because you value responding to change over following the plan and you understand that sometimes you need to deviate from the plan. But that doesn't mean you ignore your final destination. You may not follow your planned route but your destination remains the same.
Going through the manifesto... (1) We want everyone to be at the destination, and we care more about the fact that the people are treated as people than that they be there; if someone needs accommodations we make the accommodations because people are more important than process. (2) We want to make sure we have the destination. If the event were a big party it would suck if everyone got there and we discovered a a bunch of todo items like "rent the venue" and "hire the caterers". The plans are nice, but we need to actually make progress toward the destination rather than just making progress towards plans. (3) Helping people get to the destination is more important than details of how they get there. If individuals have different needs in order to get to the event, try to accommodate those needs. (4) We should help people reach the destination following whatever route works for them. If they need to change their route to reach the destination we should help them.
All of this is predicated on having a clear destination that everyone understands. When I've seen Agile fail that's been the biggest failing, there was no shared understanding of what was expected. When I've seen Agile succeed it was when everyone (or at least the key people) had a clear shared vision of the destination.
Then stop being a bunch of cheap ass conservatives.
No need to bring in politics, that spans the entire conservative/liberal spectrum.
Everybody wants a good deal. Everybody likes a bargain. It always stings to find out you paid more for something than what other people paid. In government work it isn't just partisan politics and the too-frequent blind hatred of the other side, even on projects a person personally supports it is angering to learn more money was spent than was necessary. It has nothing to do with if the person is conservative or liberal.
There is stealing tech like you described, and stealing tech like China is doing it.
Industrial espionage is basically the acceptable form of doing it. If you can slip someone into the company, sneak up to the golden goose, and get out, that's a corporate success story. Alternatively if you can hire away their workers, or if you can reverse engineer technology, those are also generally acceptable. The goods are still protected by assorted laws, but if you can sneak some information out that's generally accepted.
China's form is a mandate that every company doing business turns over the golden goose outright. If you want to do business in China you must turn over the technology, and you must pass along ownership to a mandatory Chinese business partner. Many times the mandated business partner takes the IP and makes their own products from it. They aren't adapting it, nor growing from it, nor trying to integrate it into their own. The law requires corporations give up their secrets, then those secrets are directly used against the corporation.
Not that it matters. I suspect the ruling will be that general game mechanics are not protected by copyright law.
I'm reading through the complaint right now, it looks like that's the situation. Most are scène à faire look-and-feel elements and gameplay elements, neither are protected. The trade dress claims are based on scène à faire (standard elements for the style of game) elements.
Reading through it, there are: Look and feel of pre-game lobby, islands with bridges, towns, farms, rural and urban areas, battlefield noises, weapons and armor, these are all scène à faire. Others are non-protectable gameplay elements: airplane jump to choose starting location, shrinking combat zone to force players together as more are eliminated, equipment acquisition over the course of the game, weapons and armor stats, the use of backpacks, consumables, health bars, etc.
There have been strong suits for this before, like The Sims Online v. The Ville. That one had strong claims where the side-by-side images had RGB-identical colors and pixel-identical placement for user interfaces, and item-for-item duplicates of traits. That was a strong suit when you could see they were side-by side identical. Here the images are like both games have soldiers in combat and both have maps, and both games have buildings. The defense there is easy to claim as scène à faire, just present screen captures from a hundred other fighting games in the same situations. They could probably pull out near-identical images from thousands games that all pre-dated PUBG.
The frying pan is probably the most iconic in their claims, but even that is easy enough to explain away with an enormous amount of prior art as a comedic weapon: Recent movies like Disney's Tangled, or going back Austin Powers, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and hundreds more. Even Mary Poppins from the 1960's had the cook wield a frying pan when she thought the house was being invaded. Frying pans as weapons have been standard in books for centuries, including the old Sherlock Holmes a century ago. I wouldn't be surprised if some Shakespeare comedies involve a wielded pan.
PUBG has no case here.
There may be a little bit of wrangling, but likely the mutual investors of both companies will order them to stop bickering and the case will wither. PUBG's numbers have been dropping, but it isn't due to copyright infringement.
Those are third parties to ICANN. Private parties provide a technical contact, and that party contacts the actual technical contact.
The system requires the names for technical contacts to be published at the very least.
It never hurts to own the people who are making the laws
There is a principle about business I learned decades ago: Give campaign donations to the political parties in power. Since they change frequently, give small but regular campaign donations to all the politicians.
This happens from the smallest mom-and-pop shops up through the megacorps. If you eventually want a favor --- and the larger the company is the more favors it wants --- you can point out that you've been a contributor to their campaigns for many years. The business doesn't have to agree with their policies nor even like the person. It also doesn't need to be much. For a local business it might be $10 per year to each group, so perhaps $100/year total. For some influence at the state level perhaps $1000 spread around 20 people and groups. Small investment each year for the ability to say "You can see in the books I've given you money for fifteen years, I'd like some help with a political problem...".
Give to all the political parties over your geographical control, and you'll have a say in policy. Call it owning them, call it influence, call it gaining some power over your destiny. Whatever you call it, millennia of history show consistently putting a small amount to all the politicians is a wise business move.
That's actually one of many identified potential problems of self-driving cars: Attackers pull the vehicle over with blinking lights then go after the occupant with whatever attack they want.
Hacking is another major concern. These folks have published a bunch of attacks on more traditional cars with fancy computer parts. Accelerators, brakes, changing gears (they only did the safe gear changes in their demos), and cranked the steering while traveling at highway speeds. With fully autonomous vehicles every component is available for a digital attack.
Then you've got physical issues. Medical problems with the driver, remotely delivering a bomb, intentionally disabling sensors at a critical moment, and so many more.
Another major side effect will be the drop in organ transplants since car crashes account for about 1/5 of all organ donations, which has been discussed in depth on /. several times.
Plus This classic shown in XKCD.
Any half witted human driver had at least 6 seconds to notice the pedestrian.
Six seconds earlier, as seen from the video?
Half-witted drivers must have learned to see in the dark.
When I watch it, the first moment I can see the pedestrian is the light shoes at the very end of 0:06 into the clip. In the one they released with the computer's response (my Google search is failing me for finding it) the computer slammed on brakes about a quarter second before that moment, when the pedestrian was just about to enter the lane.
FFS... we need a special court for tech cases.
It seems that way, but I'm not sure why it should be. ... I think I could make that pretty obvious to most people, even a judge.
Unfortunately it often isn't. The initial judge learned to program so he could understand the case. He admitted his learning was rudimentary, but enough to understand what was going on. The appeals judges did not and that has been a point of contention. The only one in the legal system who learned to program was the trial court judge, and he threw out most of the arguments as a result. The appeals courts and the solicitor general have made their decisions without that, and Google's appeals say the knowledge is imperative.
Consider back in 2011, Justices Elena Kagen (age 51 at the time) and Stephen Breyer (age 73 at the time) had game consoles brought in and they learned to play multiple violent games so they could fully understand the case. They followed instructions on how to play their way through to the scenes that the plaintiffs found most objectionable, the ones where they say people were lighting children on fire and smashing their heads to get points.
If judges don't know enough to make a properly informed decision and they cannot gain that knowledge from case law and subject experts, it is their duty to gain that knowledge. There have been judges who took up hiking in dangerous situations, visited a wide range of locations from pig farms to remote deadly roadways, and studied arcane subjects in order to make a fair judgement.
Note that the first time around the question was split into three parts: copyright, patent, and damages. The judge learned how to program. In trials there are question of law and questions of fact; the judge decides questions of law and the jury decides questions of fact. The judge ruled from his experience learning to code that many of Oracle's claims were invalid on their face, and didn't allow them to go to the jury trial. The declaration was that "it does not matter that the declaration or or method header lines are identical," even though Oracle decided they were. The non-programmer appeals court judges reversed the decision. The Solicitor General (who also doesn't know how to program) recommended against a SCOTUS ruling at the time, letting it go back to the lower courts for further defense.
It headed back to the lower court for this second round. The judge and the jury decided there should be no damages because of the fair use exception in copyright law. The jury included people who knew how to program, and they decided it was perfectly legal due to fair use. Now the appeals judges (who still don't know anything about programming) is countermanding the jury's findings, which rarely happens.
Google should absolutely appeal. The next level is the full en banc review. They asked earlier for members of the three judge panel to learn to code, but they apparently did not convince them. Their lawyers should (and I'm sure they are) using that fact in their appeals. While the judges are comfortable enough with books and movies to apply copyright law in those cases, they can argue that unlike the trial court judge who learned to program to answer the questions, the appeals judges did not have a sufficient understanding to make these determinations, thus even though they understood the wording of law they still committed an error of judgement by failing to fully understand the content of the case.
If you disagree don't bother debating with me, I'm not listening.
Ah, the closed minded approach.
For those on /. who ARE willing to listen, the point is not for self-driving cars to be perfect. Real-world scenarios suggest that a zero-crash world is virtually impossible.
What we need are for self-driving vehicles to be far safer than human-driven vehicles, not necessarily zero crashes. And so far, that has proven to be the case. Right now there are about 32,000 fatalities in car crashes across the US every year. Even if that number were reduced to 20,000 fatalities it would be well worth it in lives saved; it is quite likely if all cars were replaced the fatalities could be reduced from thirty thousand to a few hundred per year. Some would still die but it would be a tiny fraction of those who die under human control.
In this crash the company and police released videos and telemetry. The video shows a jaywalker at night walking their bike (which has no reflectors or lights) across an unlit road after coming out from behind a shrub and small metal fence (about the same density and radar reflectivity as a bike) in the median. The computer's radar identified the moving obstruction and slammed on the brakes about 200 milliseconds before I could see anything in the unlit patch. No human could have seen the pedestrian in time to apply the brakes. If they did notice, many people in high speed collisions will swerve and roll their vehicle as well. The computer managed to apply the brakes, but also realized it could not avoid the pedestrian by swerving, nor could it stop the vehicle from highway speeds in that distance despite slamming on the brakes.
Even though the jaywalker died, the computer still reacted faster and more accurately than any human could. The computer identified and was reacting (including realizing swerving would not help) before there was anything visible to the human eye.
Tragic as her death was, it was caused by physics of speed and the jaywalker's choice to cross in an unlit area, walking from behind a shrub, directly in front of a high-velocity car that was completely visible if they looked to their right. Neither a human driver nor computer driver could compensate for the jaywalker's fatal choice.
in your case, a US judge can certainly order a US entity to do something which would violate another countries laws, and its up to the entity themselves to resolve that conflict.
Which is exactly what they're doing here.
Go read the legal briefs submitted by various nations and international organizations. The European Commission, the government of the United Kingdom, the government of Ireland, the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe, the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the French Department of Business, and even the United Nations legal arm for data privacy. All of them said that if the US enforced the order they'd be violating all kinds of international, law, including violating treaties made by the US government. The Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, MLAT, provides a method to get the data legally.
Urgent MLAT requests are handled immediately. Ireland has already said if the DoJ filed an MLAT request they would act immediately. But the DoJ is looking for powers that bypass judicial review and international legal review. It is a power grab, which they readily admit in the transcript linked to above. Scroll down to page 23 when asked why they can't use MLAT requests.
It is rather terrifying that they are so brazen about it in the SCOTUS arguments. They state that they could use MLAT, but they want the ability to bypass the courts; if they win the precedent: "We don't have to go to a court first. We just issue the instrument. The provider has to make disclosures."
Good summary. The links to the full arguments are up along with links to the other details. Scotsblog post generally, and today's transcript specifically.
The list of amici curiae is impressive. The European Commission, the government of the United Kingdom, the government of Ireland, the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe, the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce, the French Department of Business, and even the United Nations legal arm for data privacy. All of them said that if the US enforced the order they'd be violating all kinds of international, law, including violating treaties made by the US regarding preserving privacy of some of the information the government is demanding. The Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, MLAT,
They also all state point #2 that you made, which is the same thing Microsoft says: There is already a procedure for this, done through international treaty, by filing an MLAT request. The procedure is followed all the time and does not take years like the federal government is suggesting. Nations have a solid history of acting on urgent request immediately, generally as soon as the call or email or request is made. Ireland's government has stated at every level of the case that they would immediately act on the request if the justice department would follow the international treaties that are already in place.
The government lawyer stated EXACTLY the reason they want this on page 23 of the transcript. Justice Alito asked why the government didn't use any of the conventional methods to get the data. Government's reply: " We don't have to go to a court first. We just issue the instrument. The provider has to make disclosures. " They freely admit that this is an attempt to grab information in a way that bypasses the courts, bypasses international treaties and MLAT requirements and extraterritorial law, and bypasses the US due process requirements. It is nothing more or less than a power grab to bypass legal protections.
It looks like California's law attempts to regulate the businesses directly.
The versions in New York and Montana are different, they deal with the state's business agreements. That is, if the company doesn't stand by the same net neutrality rules the state will stop the business.
Montana certainly isn't a big state for funding and they said they've got about $50M in contracts. Losing that much business wouldn't directly hurt AT&T or similar companies, but awarding a $50M contract plus rollout costs across the state to a smaller company -- probably an in-state company -- would create a strong competitor to the existing duopoly. As the small companies tend to be more friendly with leased line provisions the large telecos know they'd quickly lose business to a large percentage of the state.
I draw, but abandoned hope of being professional artist after art classes. I can draw human bodies, clothes, and all other human anatomy details just fine. But I have to leave faces blank.
I have studied faces for years. I've had teachers try to help me, but faces never turned out. When I work from an image from a face and hold it right next to the drawing I can put together a portrait but it takes a long time. Usually I must go through carefully memorized rules: circle, square and thirds to position features; eye gap of one eye wide for the nose; pupil distance equal mouth distance; ear locations relative to eyes and nose; chin shape and jowls based on gender and weight; planes of nose, mouth, cheeks, and eyes for detail placement and shading. I build up the entire face through memorized rules, but for every other non-facial feature I can draw by following the curves, key points, memory, and understanding of anatomy.
I am often told the face doesn't look quite right, but everything else looks perfect.
When others are sketching faces by memory, I have to tediously measure specific details; the nose is slightly wider than their eye distance rule, the lips are narrower than the rule, their chin is particularly large and pronounced, and so on. I memorize faces by how they differ from the rules, not by what faces actually look like. When I'm done, I have no idea how close I've come to the actual recognizable face, and need to ask, "Do you think this look like the person?" If I'm lucky I don't have to ask, I'll be asked "Is that a drawing of {famous person}?"
That is in addition to frequent social gaffes. I know a person, I can talk about what they've done and their relationships to others. But on many occasions I've asked questions like "How do you feel about {person}'s performance?" or "What do you think of {person}'s presentation?", only to have that be the person in question. I've met people in the park and I think "I think I know that person", they walk up and greet me by name; when I tell them I'm having trouble with their name, they tell me and I suddenly realize we've been on the same team at work for six months.
Even so, when I asked my doctor about it, he said it was probably just normal variation, some people are better at it than others...
For the time dilation, I love the example of bouncing a ball off the wall.
Imagine sitting in a room where a person tosses a ball against the wall, has it bounce back, and catches it.
The person bouncing the ball will have the same experience no matter how fast they are traveling. If they are traveling very slowly compared to the speed of light it will bounce off the wall exactly as you predict. If they are traveling on a train or airplane at a steady speed, they can bounce the ball and it will happen the same. If they are travelling at enormous velocity, it will appear the same. If they are traveling at nearly the speed of light they can continue to bounce the ball and it will travel exactly the same.
However, because of the absolute speed limit of the speed of light, time would need to dilate for the faster-moving ball. The relative speed of time itself changes when approaching the speed of light.
I think the two of you are talking past each other. The current precedent is that the seller must have a presence in that state to deal with that state's taxes. If they don't have anything to do with the state already, only putting the address on the package, they don't need to worry about it.
If the seller has a presence in the same state as the buyer, then the seller collects sales tax and reports it to the state. They would already do that anyway, so not a big deal to require it.
If the seller does not have a presence in the same state as the buyer, then the seller does not do anything regarding the taxes in the buyer's state, they can ship without collecting their state taxes. The state can require the individual to file a "use tax", but the seller is under no obligation.
The case is about South Dakota wanting businesses that have nothing to do with the state, that have no presence in the state, that have never done any paperwork to do business within the state, to be obligated to file paperwork and other filings to South Dakota. In short order this means every retailer in the country will need to file reports with all 50 states if they have anybody who lives out of their states. This is the burden the SCOTUS said they were trying to avoid with the last ruling.
Amazon is one of only a handful of major companies that could handle the paperwork for all states without a massive burden. Even they're gaining physical presence in many states through their acquisitions and growth. I cannot think of other major online retailers who don't have a sales presence in most states already.