Problem is juries are being told they have to follow the word of the law and not actually decide guilt or innocence.
If the law says having something is crime no matter how you wound up with it or what you did when you became aware you had it then juries are told if they find beyond a reasonable doubt that you had it they must find you guilty, even if that veridict is a rediculous miscarriage of justice.
It's not so much whether you are tresspassing (though that's a good indicator) but rather a reasonable person wouldn't expect to be seen.
Now if your neighbors are walking around naked in front of thier big front window with no curtains where passing traffic couldn't fail to see it then they have no room to complain.
However if they're in thier upstairs bathroom and you have to climb out on a tree limb and use binoculars, even if it your tree, things are probably different.
However IANAL, so go get one before considering a peeping tomm hobby and don't blame me if this turns out totaly wrong.
Some jurisdictions do make a distinction or two on ages.
Here in this state under 14 is a no-no no matter what. But 14-17 is o.k. if the other person is 14-20.
And over 17 is O.K. All this assumes normal competence, mental retardation, being drugged, etc. change things.
Also the 14-17 age group is a lesser crime for those over 21 than under 14 is for anyone.
And "I though he/she was over 17" can be an 'affirmative defence', say if you met them in a bar where they were being served, or saw a drivers liscence with thier pic that said they were 19, etc.
Looked this up for someone I knew who was 19 but had a GF who was only 16 and was told that he could get statutory rape charges against him (her over protective brother). So it may have changed in the last few years.
The fault here lies in punnishing everyone with a commonality to a criminal.
If a drug user or prostitutes customer commits a crime, PUNISH THAT not everyone in simular circumstance.
We penalize drunk drivers yet not drinkers. Why? Because we tried to criminalize alchol on much more limited evidence against it's use than we have now and got not an improvement in society, but rather organized crime and other harms.
Restricting freedoms based on the kind of reasoning you've just used has sofar only HURT society more, not helped it in any measurable sense other than to line the pockets and careres of polititians.
Meanwhile a man who flies a charter service amoungst the Haiwian Islands (IIRC, may have been the florida keys) has his plane arrested (YES arrested, not impounded) because a healthy clean cut man in a nice suit chartered him for a flight and had some cocain in his briefcase. No charges were ever filed against the plane owner, let alone any convictions, yet the 'arrested' plane was sold at police auction and the man put out of bussiness.
BUT you cannot deny the social problems (specifically the CRIME) that is associated with prohibition.<--paraphrased to reflect reality, instead of the propaganda.
Actually, IIRC, that part came under fire and got shot down in court. As did the just looks underage part. However I suspect thier bassically just trying to re-word and re-pass those parts to pass constitutional muster.
It's been a while so you would have to google for details, though I think I read about it here on/.
How on earth can you equate spanking (NOT beating, spanking) with torture.
Next you'll equate saying 'no' to a childs demands with emotional cruelty and sending them to thier room with locking them in a 1m x 1m tin shed in some tropical third world prison camp.
While I agree users SHOULD do more towards maintaining thier machines (esp since I make money that way:) ) Your basic premis about patching does have a couple significant caveats.
The first you mentioned yourself, the pre-patch virus/worms/etc. that use a newly discovered and unpatched flaw.
Another flaw is that not all patches can be installed by everyone. Some patches simply break things the user must have. Perhaps if it was possible to say 'sorry boss I can't do that the patch breaks it' and not get fired, but it's not.
Also some patches have actually made things worse.
Third is that essentially all computers are sold with an install that is many patches behind current. Hook an upatched computer to the net, even if ALL you do is download patches, and you'll likely be infected in minutes if not seconds.
About a year ago (at a guess) I hooked a fresh install of WinXP pro sp1 to the net over a 28.8 (at best) connection and it took less than five minutes to crash from a blaster infection.
It's like saying I should be liable if I don't lock (but do close) my door and some crook sprains his back trying to lift my tv out of it's spot.
Personally I think a good place to focus efforts to improve the net and computer use is the isp. The amount of good they could do is huge, just use the carrot and not the stick so much and focus on education and encouragement more than limits and penalties. That said if an isp detects a machine spewing out blaster or code-red they would be justified blocking that machine from anything but reciving an email explaining the problem.
I would think it'd be a bit more than that. A full chest plate at least.
Consider how much kinetic energy a bullet has. It's not just the puncture that is harmfull. Hydrostatic shock and raw kinetic energy also both play a role.
When a policeman's protective vest stops a round they still quite often go to the hospital to get checked out for at least serious bruising and broken ribs aren't unheard of.
Of course this assumes more realistic physics than many comics show (I don't care HOW well you brace your feet and how strong/indestructible you are, your not going to just put out your hands and neatly stop a mini-van), but Batman always seemed to be a bit more realistic in some sense than others.
If so they revamped quite a few items as the Amiga could run software for C64 and some other Commodore machines as well as use the many of the same periphereals including the 1541 and 1571 (5.25" and 3.5" floppy disk drives) with thier odd daisy chained rs232 varient.
I believe it's based on the buyers location at time of purchase.
Thus if I'm in vegas and purchase, errr., entertainment of some sort I pay vegas sales taxes.
If I'm in my own home and purchase, errr., entertainment of some sort I pay the taxes here.
At least that's how I understand it. That said if the laws were re-writen to be a tax on the bussiness instead of the consumer it WOULD make life simpler for all concerned.
Of course if that happened bussiness that could would move to states with low taxes, causing competition on this factor to some degree. This happens to some degree on other taxes that do affect bussiness so it might not be so huge a factor on that front.
In the same state where you are paid. I believe THAT one was solved when people started doing the traveling salesman thing across state borders.
It sounds like NH is where you'd pay the income tax.
Hadn't heard that part of it. Only knew about the Coke thing because of my aunt and later heard about them being sued for false advertising (they WERE calling it COKE-a-cola even thought the coke was gone).
But what do I know, I'm one of the four people that actually liked new coke better than 'original'. These days it's Dr.Pepper and some of the various energy sodas.
Not exactly. There are reasons for cheating while not letting your mate do the same for both genders.
The male stratagy is simple. Maximum spread of the genes.
The female stratagy is a bit more complex do to the much more limited set of ofspring she can have.
Her's is to maximize the survival of her children. This means the actual father needs to have genes that help the child survive, while the male guardian needs to be geared more towards protecting said children. These are not always entirely compatable traits.
This in part explains why Women can be drawn towards the real assholes even while married to pretty nice guys. The assholes are of course more agressive(and other things), a survival trait pre-civilization, and the nice guys of course forgive or at least don't take it out on the kids.
It's a bit more complicated than that. Originally 56k took into acount how telco systems sent outbound signals combined together till they hit a device that split them up into discreet analog signals over copper.
In fact it was only the signal from telco to home that could hit 56k, the reverse was(is?) limited to 33k.
In the US the fcc determined that full speed could cause crosstalk in some situations and required limiting to 48k IIRC. This is why some people tell thier system they're in Canada or Australia or someplace without that limit because some modems rely on the drivers to determin max speed and the drivers in turn rely on the system/user.
The OS changed, but that didn't change the masses perceptions any.
The masses see wintell==the games and stuff thier used to apple==artsy people.
If perceptions had differed then or now it would make a difference.
Minor nit Commodore made the Amiga, they were not seperate companies.
And frankly they should have won. If I have anything against Apple the fact that they not Commodore 'won' when it comes to the 6's (though apple has since abandoned that ship and looks like they're gona jump again now).
I honestly felt the 6's were better than the 8's back then, and Commodore easily beat Apple in my opinion.
This isn't a dissagreement or agrument here, but some interesting, related stuff. Coke-A-Cola (TM and all that) got it's name from one of it's ingredients that they later got sued over removing to replace with Caffiene.
Of course Coke can no longer put coke in it's Cola, but I find it interesting nonetheless.
I've been told one of my aunts (now deceased) was mildly addicticted to coke-a-cola back then, but the change kinda weaned her off it though.
I'm not shure how 'used' to it you could get. The excessive pull on internal connective tissues might cause dangerous organ displacement.
I could swear I read somewhere that over about 1.2g's things like that started happening.
Also higher gravity means much higher wear and tear on the body leading to shorter life.
This is all of course ignoring that this planet is something like 400-700 degrees f (200+ c). Not to mention the new minimum drinking age of 3835.
Man is a social animal. Fitting in is a major component of our daily activities.
The tendancy to look askance at those who deliberatly violate membership 'rules' (ie customary norms) is normal and a survival trait you see throughout the animal kingdom.
However as time goes on and this sort of thing gains acceptance in normal culture, it becomes less problematic to hire persons who engage in this sort of self modification.
I was not passing moral or even ethical judgement. I've taken friends to the local tat place and even have several relatives so decorated (one to cover a bad burn scar on his shoulder), and one that's good quality can look quite nice.
It's the more extreme cases that make one procede with initial caution, as should most forms excess.
If you really thought that the combo in question could cause the apocolypse then I must say your conviction that adding that IMBD troll entry might stop it is akin to the conviction they guy had right befor sniping the red wire that he thought would dissarm the bomb, but instead tripled the countdown speed.
Yeah that's an akward run-on sentence from hell, but it says what I want it to.
Actually I would call it a ringworld derrivative as the Halo device is MUCH smaller than a ring world. It's less than a million miles (possibly less than a million KM) across IIRC, where the ringworld is approximately 2au in diameter.
Niven's ringworld idea turns out to require help to maintain stability lest any small peterbation grow untill it crashes into the central star.
On the other hand it's possible to manipulate the central star of a ringworld to creat an unbalanced jet effect and turn the star into a 'fusion rocket engine' for the whole system, which could be up to bussard ram-jet speeds by the time you run out of star to burn.
Well they didn't learn after Starship Troopers did they.
Of course the Author was deceased in both cases so possibly that would be a factor, assuming banks is still alive.
Slashdot Mirror
Problem is juries are being told they have to follow the word of the law and not actually decide guilt or innocence.
If the law says having something is crime no matter how you wound up with it or what you did when you became aware you had it then juries are told if they find beyond a reasonable doubt that you had it they must find you guilty, even if that veridict is a rediculous miscarriage of justice.
Mycoft
It's not so much whether you are tresspassing (though that's a good indicator) but rather a reasonable person wouldn't expect to be seen.
Now if your neighbors are walking around naked in front of thier big front window with no curtains where passing traffic couldn't fail to see it then they have no room to complain.
However if they're in thier upstairs bathroom and you have to climb out on a tree limb and use binoculars, even if it your tree, things are probably different.
However IANAL, so go get one before considering a peeping tomm hobby and don't blame me if this turns out totaly wrong.
Mycroft
Some jurisdictions do make a distinction or two on ages.
Here in this state under 14 is a no-no no matter what. But 14-17 is o.k. if the other person is 14-20.
And over 17 is O.K.
All this assumes normal competence, mental retardation, being drugged, etc. change things.
Also the 14-17 age group is a lesser crime for those over 21 than under 14 is for anyone.
And "I though he/she was over 17" can be an 'affirmative defence', say if you met them in a bar where they were being served, or saw a drivers liscence with thier pic that said they were 19, etc.
Looked this up for someone I knew who was 19 but had a GF who was only 16 and was told that he could get statutory rape charges against him (her over protective brother). So it may have changed in the last few years.
Mycroft
The fault here lies in punnishing everyone with a commonality to a criminal.
If a drug user or prostitutes customer commits a crime, PUNISH THAT not everyone in simular circumstance.
We penalize drunk drivers yet not drinkers. Why?
Because we tried to criminalize alchol on much more limited evidence against it's use than we have now and got not an improvement in society, but rather organized crime and other harms.
Restricting freedoms based on the kind of reasoning you've just used has sofar only HURT society more, not helped it in any measurable sense other than to line the pockets and careres of polititians.
Meanwhile a man who flies a charter service amoungst the Haiwian Islands (IIRC, may have been the florida keys) has his plane arrested (YES arrested, not impounded) because a healthy clean cut man in a nice suit chartered him for a flight and had some cocain in his briefcase. No charges were ever filed against the plane owner, let alone any convictions, yet the 'arrested' plane was sold at police auction and the man put out of bussiness.
BUT you cannot deny the social problems (specifically the CRIME) that is associated with prohibition.<--paraphrased to reflect reality, instead of the propaganda.
Mycroft
Actually, IIRC, that part came under fire and got shot down in court. As did the just looks underage part. However I suspect thier bassically just trying to re-word and re-pass those parts to pass constitutional muster. /.
It's been a while so you would have to google for details, though I think I read about it here on
Mycroft
How on earth can you equate spanking (NOT beating, spanking) with torture.
Next you'll equate saying 'no' to a childs demands with emotional cruelty and sending them to thier room with locking them in a 1m x 1m tin shed in some tropical third world prison camp.
Mycroft
While I agree users SHOULD do more towards maintaining thier machines (esp since I make money that way:) ) Your basic premis about patching does have a couple significant caveats.
The first you mentioned yourself, the pre-patch virus/worms/etc. that use a newly discovered and unpatched flaw.
Another flaw is that not all patches can be installed by everyone. Some patches simply break things the user must have. Perhaps if it was possible to say 'sorry boss I can't do that the patch breaks it' and not get fired, but it's not.
Also some patches have actually made things worse.
Third is that essentially all computers are sold with an install that is many patches behind current. Hook an upatched computer to the net, even if ALL you do is download patches, and you'll likely be infected in minutes if not seconds.
About a year ago (at a guess) I hooked a fresh install of WinXP pro sp1 to the net over a 28.8 (at best) connection and it took less than five minutes to crash from a blaster infection.
It's like saying I should be liable if I don't lock (but do close) my door and some crook sprains his back trying to lift my tv out of it's spot.
Personally I think a good place to focus efforts to improve the net and computer use is the isp. The amount of good they could do is huge, just use the carrot and not the stick so much and focus on education and encouragement more than limits and penalties. That said if an isp detects a machine spewing out blaster or code-red they would be justified blocking that machine from anything but reciving an email explaining the problem.
Mycroft
Well you could get off the illeagle porn charge, but get twice the time for gross contempt of court.
Mycroft
I would think it'd be a bit more than that. A full chest plate at least.
Consider how much kinetic energy a bullet has. It's not just the puncture that is harmfull. Hydrostatic shock and raw kinetic energy also both play a role.
When a policeman's protective vest stops a round they still quite often go to the hospital to get checked out for at least serious bruising and broken ribs aren't unheard of.
Of course this assumes more realistic physics than many comics show (I don't care HOW well you brace your feet and how strong/indestructible you are, your not going to just put out your hands and neatly stop a mini-van), but Batman always seemed to be a bit more realistic in some sense than others.
Mycroft
If so they revamped quite a few items as the Amiga could run software for C64 and some other Commodore machines as well as use the many of the same periphereals including the 1541 and 1571 (5.25" and 3.5" floppy disk drives) with thier odd daisy chained rs232 varient.
Mycroft
I believe it's based on the buyers location at time of purchase.
Thus if I'm in vegas and purchase, errr., entertainment of some sort I pay vegas sales taxes.
If I'm in my own home and purchase, errr., entertainment of some sort I pay the taxes here.
At least that's how I understand it.
That said if the laws were re-writen to be a tax on the bussiness instead of the consumer it WOULD make life simpler for all concerned.
Of course if that happened bussiness that could would move to states with low taxes, causing competition on this factor to some degree. This happens to some degree on other taxes that do affect bussiness so it might not be so huge a factor on that front.
Mycroft
In the same state where you are paid.
I believe THAT one was solved when people started doing the traveling salesman thing across state borders.
It sounds like NH is where you'd pay the income tax.
Mycroft
Hadn't heard that part of it. Only knew about the Coke thing because of my aunt and later heard about them being sued for false advertising (they WERE calling it COKE-a-cola even thought the coke was gone).
But what do I know, I'm one of the four people that actually liked new coke better than 'original'. These days it's Dr.Pepper and some of the various energy sodas.
Mycroft
Not exactly. There are reasons for cheating while not letting your mate do the same for both genders.
The male stratagy is simple. Maximum spread of the genes.
The female stratagy is a bit more complex do to the much more limited set of ofspring she can have.
Her's is to maximize the survival of her children. This means the actual father needs to have genes that help the child survive, while the male guardian needs to be geared more towards protecting said children. These are not always entirely compatable traits.
This in part explains why Women can be drawn towards the real assholes even while married to pretty nice guys. The assholes are of course more agressive(and other things), a survival trait pre-civilization, and the nice guys of course forgive or at least don't take it out on the kids.
Mycroft
Well YOU got the funny mod at least. However he's up to +3 Insightfull now.
Mycroft
It's a bit more complicated than that. Originally 56k took into acount how telco systems sent outbound signals combined together till they hit a device that split them up into discreet analog signals over copper.
In fact it was only the signal from telco to home that could hit 56k, the reverse was(is?) limited to 33k.
In the US the fcc determined that full speed could cause crosstalk in some situations and required limiting to 48k IIRC. This is why some people tell thier system they're in Canada or Australia or someplace without that limit because some modems rely on the drivers to determin max speed and the drivers in turn rely on the system/user.
Mycroft
The OS changed, but that didn't change the masses perceptions any.
The masses see wintell==the games and stuff thier used to apple==artsy people.
If perceptions had differed then or now it would make a difference.
Mycroft
Minor nit Commodore made the Amiga, they were not seperate companies.
And frankly they should have won. If I have anything against Apple the fact that they not Commodore 'won' when it comes to the 6's (though apple has since abandoned that ship and looks like they're gona jump again now).
I honestly felt the 6's were better than the 8's back then, and Commodore easily beat Apple in my opinion.
Mycroft
This isn't a dissagreement or agrument here, but some interesting, related stuff.
Coke-A-Cola (TM and all that) got it's name from one of it's ingredients that they later got sued over removing to replace with Caffiene.
Of course Coke can no longer put coke in it's Cola, but I find it interesting nonetheless.
I've been told one of my aunts (now deceased) was mildly addicticted to coke-a-cola back then, but the change kinda weaned her off it though.
Mycroft
I'm not shure how 'used' to it you could get.
The excessive pull on internal connective tissues might cause dangerous organ displacement.
I could swear I read somewhere that over about 1.2g's things like that started happening.
Also higher gravity means much higher wear and tear on the body leading to shorter life.
This is all of course ignoring that this planet is something like 400-700 degrees f (200+ c).
Not to mention the new minimum drinking age of 3835.
Mycroft
Man is a social animal. Fitting in is a major component of our daily activities.
The tendancy to look askance at those who deliberatly violate membership 'rules' (ie customary norms) is normal and a survival trait you see throughout the animal kingdom.
However as time goes on and this sort of thing gains acceptance in normal culture, it becomes less problematic to hire persons who engage in this sort of self modification.
I was not passing moral or even ethical judgement. I've taken friends to the local tat place and even have several relatives so decorated (one to cover a bad burn scar on his shoulder), and one that's good quality can look quite nice.
It's the more extreme cases that make one procede with initial caution, as should most forms excess.
Mycroft
If you really thought that the combo in question could cause the apocolypse then I must say your conviction that adding that IMBD troll entry might stop it is akin to the conviction they guy had right befor sniping the red wire that he thought would dissarm the bomb, but instead tripled the countdown speed.
Yeah that's an akward run-on sentence from hell, but it says what I want it to.
Mycroft
Actually I would call it a ringworld derrivative as the Halo device is MUCH smaller than a ring world. It's less than a million miles (possibly less than a million KM) across IIRC, where the ringworld is approximately 2au in diameter.
Niven's ringworld idea turns out to require help to maintain stability lest any small peterbation grow untill it crashes into the central star.
On the other hand it's possible to manipulate the central star of a ringworld to creat an unbalanced jet effect and turn the star into a 'fusion rocket engine' for the whole system, which could be up to bussard ram-jet speeds by the time you run out of star to burn.
Mycroft
Well they didn't learn after Starship Troopers did they.
Of course the Author was deceased in both cases so possibly that would be a factor, assuming banks is still alive.
Mycroft
Didn't know any octagenarians posted to /.
Mycroft