You know, there were proposals to create an optional market-based system that your generation could choose to participate in, but the people who proposed that were accused of trying to kill old people by eliminating social security. AARP isn't going to get smaller in the future, it's going to get larger, and those people vote.
and it's that first generation who fucked them.
No, it will be the generation that actually breaks the promises by eliminating the system. If that happens to be your generation and you benefit from that, then you get the blame, not people from 50 or 100 years ago.
Basically, if you build a labor saving device for your factory (so you can get a benefit from it), it seems fair you should return some of the benefit to the people whose labor was replaced.
Why does it seem fair?
Under this argument, if I clean out my rain gutters (so I benefit from having clean gutters and save the money I would have had to pay someone) I should send a check to all the local gutter cleaning services in the area to "return some of the benefit to the people whose labor was replaced" by my own. And every lawn mower sold would have a tax added to the purchase (and a regular tax from then on) to be sent to the local lawn care companies to "return some of the benefit to the people whose labor was replaced".
And, of course, the price of the lawnmower would be higher because the lawnmower manufacturer would have to send regular payments to the "Amalgamated Push Mower Operator's Union", whose labor was replaced by the gasoline engine.
And then imagine the cost of the payments to "Buggy Driver's Local 347" and "Union of Buggy Whip Employees" by every automobile owner...
The alternative is the present situation where automation is feared and discouraged because we need jobs for everyone.
If you are only returning SOME of the benefits, then those who are displaced are still "losing" money and they still have a reason to oppose automation, and those who actually DO the automation will have less reason to do it, so under your idea there is even less encouragement to automate anything.
1. Eliminate all low-income welfare programs - there are a TON of these
And you'll have every welfare recipient sending you form letters opposing this and promising to vote you out.
2. Eliminate social security
Have you not heard how those awful Republicans want to kill off social security and all the old people because they want to create an OPTIONAL alternate system that people can CHOOSE to participate in INSTEAD of being forced to pay into a Ponzi scheme called SSI? Not get rid of anything, just create an alternative, and they are now the party of death for old people.
And here you expect to survive an explicit call to end social security altogether. Well, guess what? I'll be one of the people opposing you, because I've had money taken from me all my working life to pay into that system, and now you want to say "too bad, so sad, the promises that were made to you to support this tax on your income are not going to be kept."
"But we'll replace that with a $2k/month check! Isn't that better?" You're going to send $2k checks to everyone, even people who have never worked a day in their life. How is getting the same thing that lazy good-for-nothings get after I worked ard for a lifetime "better"?
I'll tell you what. I'll support this system IF you go back thirty years and add up all the medicare and social security taxes that have been deducted from my wages, and employer contribution to those that I could have been paid, and hand me a lump-sum check for that amount (plus interest). Then I'll go on your "basic income" plan and retire tomorrow, living tax free for the rest of my life. Sounds fair to me.
4. Eliminate most low-income student support programs (school lunches, etc...)
Oh my God. Think of the Children (TM)! Children cannot learn if they don't have breakfast and lunch provided by the government, because we know that the parents aren't able to provide it for them. And they must get free lunches during the summer, too. These handouts are not just for poor kids, they're for every kid, so if parents who make $50k a year cannot take care of this for their own kids, then how can you even begin to imagine that someone making just $24k/year could do it?
5. Eliminate most V.A. support programs, which is basically welfare as well
Excuse me, but the Veterans Administration is providing services to those people who served our country in the military and were promised this support for doing so. You want to ignore the promises made to the working people by eliminating social security, and now you want to break every promise made to our veterans.
6. Government pensioners can probably have their pension payments removed from the minimum income (IE you don't get a pension AND basic income)
And government workers, may of whom worked for less than market for many years based on promises of a better pension, are the next target. In Oregon, the public employees unions explicitly negotiated contracts in time of tight budgets to delay inflation-based pay raises for the promise of more pension when they retired. Now that they are retiring, guess who are the targets of belt-tightening and complaints? Yep, those employees who were promised a dollar tomorrow for a hamburger yesterday.
And you'd break every promise to those people by eliminating the pensions they paid into for so many years.
7. Eliminate make-work/stimulus programs
If there is no stimulus to work, why bother? Who is going to do the dirty work of keeping infrastructure in place if they can simply take money every month for doing nothing? You are going to have to have a stimulus to get people who are getting a "basic income" for doing nothing to do something extra.
You can probably eliminate unemployment insurance, minimum wage,
Then the drone doesn't take off because it's not getting the signal for it's control system properly...
Wait a minute there. The proposal was for a beacon to be installed in places where there was a no-fly zone, like airports or at wildfire TFR sites. Now you say that if there ISN'T a valid beacon signal received then the drone won't take off. So that requires beacons to be EVERYWHERE that drones CAN fly -- which is a hell of a lot of places.
As for the beacons, who's talking about selling them?
1. If they are going to be installed someplace, someone has to sell them.
2. You replied to my fake voiceover for an infomercial selling them, so I was talking about it as a way of pointing out how trivial it would be to game the system.
Operating them without a license is illegal, and you're broadcasting right where you are...
Yes, operating a transmitter without a license is illegal. You aren't broadcasting where you are, you are transmitting a radio signal that someone will have to locate. If you are transmitting only when your daughters are out in the back yard using the swimming pool, it is unlikely that anyone will be able to do that. And if you are using a beacon jammer, you're already planning to break the law by flying your drone where you would need to jam the signal, and you are only going to be transmitting when you are flying. Your chance of getting caught is infinitely small.
...And you completely ignored my previous paragraph, not to mention the 'like some other posters have presented' (I should have said proposed)
I replied to your comment about physical barriers being required before you can charge someone with committing a felony.
I'm willing to count an officer telling you 'don't come back here' as a barrier. You should NOT be able to get one by 'merely' making a wrong turn or flying a drone.
Yes, I'm would count that, too. BUT that is still stupid. I'm sorry, it just is. You're saying that if there isn't a police officer standing there telling you "don't rob that guy", you shouldn't be charged with a felony when you do it. You're saying that if there isn't a police officer standing there telling you not to fly your drone within 15 miles of Regan International Airport you shouldn't be charged with a felony -- even if you are doing it deliberately to interfere with manned aircraft.
That's what "You should NOT be able to get one by 'merely' making a wrong turn or flying a drone" means. Yes, if you go up the exit ramp of a freeway and run into someone and kill them, you should be charged with a felony even if there is no physical barrier to your doing so. If you fly a drone over a crowd and it crashes into someone and kills them, you should be charged with a felony even if there is no physical barrier stopping you from doing it.
As for new law mandating the drone protection, it could be done without law by a trade group or something.
No, it cannot. You REALLY want trade groups writings laws? You REALLY want RIAA and MPAA writing laws? If it isn't a law, then you haven't "put it on someone's head".
By the way, were you aware that movie ratings don't have the force of law behind them?
What do movie ratings have to do with felonious operation of drones? What an absurd nonsequitor.
Enjoy your $1k fine from the FCC. Existing law, not new law.
I was attempting to point out in a humorous way how this beacon system could be abused by those who wanted to, not specifically that they'd sell them a 3AM on a cable channel. Yes, selling them would be illegal, already. Distributing information on how to take a Baofeng $40 radio and turn it into a beacon transmitter is less illegal. And websites with information on how to clip the beacon receiver antenna would be legion.
I wasn't adding another law. I was proposing adding a physical system
Which would require a new law to force manufacturers to include a beacon receiver, and another law that would make it illegal to disable a beacon receiver. That's not an existing law, so yes, you are proposing new laws. If you want it to be "on someone's head" that they disabled the beacon receiver and flew where they shouldn't, then you're wanting a law for the first part in addition to existing law for the second.
I happen to think that's wrong. You should have to break a barrier - an actual obvious barrier, before you're hit with a felony like some other posters have presented.
You mean like when you point a gun at someone and tell them to give you all their money, the little pop-up window that appears in your line of sight that says "you're about to commit a felony -- click OK or CANCEL"? I'm sorry, but it just isn't feasible to put physical barriers in front of everyone who is about to commit a felony that require them to explicitly acknowledge their desire to do so.
You're never going to stop no-fly zone intrusions.
That's right.
The idea here is that we eliminate the 'vast majority' of unintentional intrusions by having an automatic system in place.
And I'm pointing out the problem with that system and how easily it can and will be abused. Note that I didn't say it should not or could not be tried, but I think the cost will greatly outweigh the benefit because it will be gamed very easily.
You point out that the DC zone is intruded in a few times a year. I dare say that it is a lot more than that, but that the vast, huge majority of times it is innocuous and meaningless intrusions. Someone gets a $40 toy helicopter and flies it in the backyard. Stuff like that. Installing beacons and forcing those toys to have beacon receivers will not fix any significant problem.
Yes, it probably would have stopped the moron at the US Open. It might have stopped the moron who flew one into the Whitehouse lawn. But the people who actually want to do bad things will know how to disable the beacon system, so you won't stop them. All you will do is add yet another law (against disabling the beacon receiver or the no-fly function it implements) on top of the do-not-fly law, on top of the law against whatever the basic bad thing they wanted to do was.
"If you call within the next ten minutes, we'll double your order. That's right, not one, but two 'no-fly beacons' for the price of one (just pay additional shipping and handling)."
with the idea that it's on the operator's head if they hack their drone so it ignores the signal.
It's already on the operator's head if they fly stupidly. Will adding another law stop someone who is already breaking the law?
And goody goody,/. is playing games with the "disable ads" system again.
If they can forcibly stop a car from entering an active crime scene or fire area, they can do this.
A car entering a fire area is an object the size of, well, a car, traveling on a two-dimensional surface via limited routes. Pretty easy to block those routes to keep them out.
A quadcopter is a device with a size on the order of a football, traveling in a three-dimensional space without roads. How do you forcibly block them from entering? "Under the Dome" is fiction, by the way.
So basically have all technology set to be controlled by the government just in case they need to?
so basically you've decided to argue with something that nobody said
He's actually quite right, and pointing out an obvious side-effect of any "no-fly" system. Where do you think the "no-fly zones" come from? It's not happy little elves working in a North Pole workshop. They come from -- the FAA. "Government". Sometimes at the request of -- other government agencies (USFS, for forest fire TFRs, e.g.) or sometimes corporations (TFRs around sporting events.) If this system was implemented, what do you think it would take to ground all cooperating systems? Right -- one TFR from the FAA covering the entire US.
It will never happen? Remember 9/11?
Here's the real problem with this idea. There are sometimes reasons why flight should be authorized within a TFR or otherwise restricted area. Even on 9/11 and shortly thereafter, there were a limited number of flights allowed.
Any such system would have to include the "awareness" of the UAV that it is being used for an authorized purpose and not allow someone to just tell it "you're flying for an authorized purpose".
I didn't say it wasn't. I corrected the erroneous statement that it was designed for such uses.
You are incorrect when you state the Pi is only useful "to teach kids about computers".
Since I didn't say that, what's your problem?
You can use it for English class as well as any other computer.
I also didn't say it couldn't be used for that. What I did say is that this teacher is going out of his way to create a digital divide where none is needed, and that the Pi is not a good answer to solving the problem he is creating. He's taking kids who are supposed to be learning English and potentially giving them(or telling them to buy) an RPi, which forces them to learn how to deal with a Pi and Linux and apt-get and HDMI and power supplies instead of learning English -- which is what he is paid to teach.
His final answer should be "you can turn in handwritten work", and there won't be You Tube videos for homework. If it is "find an old computer and get it running Word..." then he's way over the line in his subject matter and needs to be replaced. Isn't it hard enough for people who don't have a support structure for elementary school classwork to just do the classwork, and isn't piling on a load of extra crap just helping to create a have/have-not society?
but they make neat serialized and tamper-evident zip ties for this purpose that are designed to be both difficult to remove without obvious damage and impossible to replace with off-the-shelf equivalents.
Neither thieves nor TSA care about replacing your serial-numbered tamper-evident zip ties with something that looks the same, nor do they care if they cause damage when they remove them. You are notified prior to checking your baggage that it is subject to search. If you try to hinder that search, they will simply cut their way in.
And having a serial-numbered tamper-evident zip tie isn't as good an indicator that your bag has been entered and something taken as the fact that something is missing. That zip tie will be in the waste basket of the departure airport, probably hundreds of miles away, doing nothing to protect your baggage. It's a waste of money. At best, it calls attention to your bag out of the hundreds of other possible targets as being more likely to contain something interesting.
Zip-Tie man below is probably right, its better to use a market zip-tie rather than a lock now.
I can think of few better ways to get a TSA baggage inspector to rip the pulls off your bag and damage the zipper than to use zip-ties to close it. He gets to choose what to look into and he can't do them all, so what bag may contain more interesting stuff? (Yours!) Then he can either 1) cut the tie or 2) insert a screwdriver or other thin metal implement between the pulls and the bag and twist until something gives. (1) is more polite and less damaging. (2) is faster and teaches you a lesson. Hmmm, which one do you you think will be chosen?
You can't trust the lock manufacturers to make good locks when an agency has undermined the whole purpose of a lock.
If you think the purpose of a baggage lock is to securely lock your valuables so that they cannot be stolen, then it is you who has the misunderstanding of the purpose. The only real purpose of a lock on luggage is to keep the zipper from coming unzipped using a reusable device. (A zip-tie does the former, fails miserably on the latter.)
The only reason I use these locks is because too many suitcases and travel bags are prone to opening when handled by the airline's gorillas that toss your baggage around.
I used to think this, then I realized that it costs much more to replace luggage which has had the zipper pulls removed and zippers damaged by TSA "inspectors" who didn't care that it was a TSA-approved lock and they just wrench the lock off the suitcase.
And if you complain, consider this: what's a great source of names for the no-fly list? Those complaint forms...
However, if the TSA thinks that the master key system was secure,
What makes you think anyone in TSA believe(s/d) the master key system was secure? Are they the same ones that think searching Gramma to keep her from sneaking a nuke on board is the right way to find terrorists?
Is there any official government group that releases previously-secured messages that anyone refers to as "ops"?
There are, of course, people whose job it is to create sanitized summaries of classified information for dissemination to those people who are not authorized the unedited versions. They're the ones who redact or summarize so that the other, unclassified information can be used by people who need it while not letting the classified stuff get out.
The subordinates who Clinton was pressing for copies of classified material would, correctly, be dealing with those people whose job it was to redact; it would be her subordinates who were "copying" email to her server by forwarding her copies as she was ordering them to.
I wasn't necessarily arguing that it was the correct people who were doing the summarizing, just that what I assumed was that the reference was an informal one to them and not the people she employed.
So some group known as "ops" is going to "convert" a message from the classified message system to "the unclassified email system"? That's go-to-prison stuff right there.
No, sanitizing classified material and releasing unclassified versions is their job. No "go to prison" there.
'Go-to-prison' comes in when someone orders a subordinate to send them a copy classified material over an insecure communications system. It also disproves any "I didn't know" defense.
Should she have switched to a government-provided e-mail account? Probably. I don't say, "absolutely," specifically because of the high profile leaks...
Leaks or not, the law says she was supposed to use her secure government-provided email for work. She ignored that law.
As an aside, Governor Palin used private e-mail for government functions too,
Sarah Palin was not in a position to deal with classified material on a regular basis, and therefore the only laws she violated were public records laws. Clinton violated those laws as well as security regulations.
but unless someone actually got hit I think the endangerment charge is overblown.
Endangerment doesn't mean "did cause damage", it means "creating a dangerous situation". And "reckless" is an important word.
You can endanger others on a daily basis, like by driving a car (which creates a danger to pedestrians, for example) but not be guilty of "reckless endangerment" because you are taking appropriate actions to mitigate the risk. You obey the basic speed limit, you signal lane changes, you don't use a handheld cellphone while driving, etc.
And just like for drivers, "reckless endangerment" doesn't require an actual injury or accident, only the disregard for safety. Someone who speeds through town and leads the cops on a merry chase at high speed may not have hit anyone, but he's certainly committed "reckless endangerment", just like a pilot who buzzes his neighbor's house does.
when someone does something stupid and not allowed in a public place like that the response is usually to simply ask them to stop and not do it again
Yes, sans injuries or accident, that is often how such a violation is handled. But when there is an accident, you've reached the point where it becomes appropriate to take some legal action just so the notoriety of the accident followed by no legal response doesn't give people the idea that doing the same thing is ok.
The fact that he disrupted the event was at issue,
No, the fact that he operated his drone in a reckless manner that endangered people was the issue. You can disrupt an event without committing "reckless endangerment".
the municipal broadband is on a level playing field with Comcast that got a monopoly for many years to bootstrap it
Non-exclusive franchises are not monopolies. Municipal broadband gets to write their own rules for what service they can provide, Comcast did not. The field is not "level".
So no, it REALLY, REALLY (i'm for real about this) is a price vs. performance decision.
Yes, it is, and one of the prices that has to be considered is the tax money that is already going to cover the losses of the municipal operation and the interest from any loans that were used to issue bonds to cover the buildout.
I know you're sentiments are well founded, but in all likelihood, what we are typing right here, right now will be on our records forever.
Yes, it will. Are you trying to equate posting here with sending naked pictures of yourself to 14 year old girls?
I'll point out that this UK list is nothing unusual. Every time someone calls the cops on someone in the US, that information goes into a database they can access for future reference. That's for both the suspect AND the person who calls. "Have we dealt with this person before" is a question that is important when considering whether the activity is simply "stupid" or has risen to the level of "harassment" or "intentional". That applies to both sides. "We've been called to this house and spoken to Bob about his loud parties three times now, we need to write a ticket instead of a warning", as well as "Frank has called us about the UFOs buzzing his house five times now, maybe we need to give social services a call."
Because someone is claiming that basic "human rights" are being violated and the kid is being oppressed. I want to know what "human right" we're talking about. Can you tell me? Is there a basic "human right" to send pictures of your willy to any girl you know? What has the world come to when we make such nonsense a "human right"?
I won't be scarred for life and neither will this girl.
You don't know this, and it isn't your place to judge on her behalf. Nobody was thrown into a gulag over this.
You may personally not mind if someone breaks into your house and takes your television. You think you watch too much TV anyway, and that person obviously needs the money or TV more than you do. But that's not a valid argument for saying that burglary isn't wrong, just as you not minding if people send you naked pictures of themselves is an argument against it being wrong when others are the recipients.
Now, if the kid didn't want the picture distributed by her, he should've known better.
Wait a minute. He can't be expected to "know better" when it comes to whether it is appropriate to send the picture in the first place, but he is supposed to "know better" that the girl would know how to bypass the "delete automatically" feature of snapchat? "Should have known better" is a two-edged sword here.
You have a brain, use it. Justify why you think such a lasting mark like a predator list is warranted
It wasn't a lasting mark on a predator list.
for 'a' picture sent probably to a crush.
I have a "crush" on your teenage daughter. You won't mind if I send her naked pictures of myself, then? She can just delete them if she doesn't want to see them, and it won't cause her any harm, right? It's harmless fun.
This seems like a case of 'stupid kid' not a case of a hardened pervert, and should be treated as such.
That's why he got such a light slap on the wrist and isn't standing in a dock facing a judge. And nobody is saying he should be.
You're arguing that it's acceptable to have laws that give children who make mistakes a criminal record.
No, I'm arguing that at 14 he should already know that what he did is wrong, and that he demonstrated his knowledge when he picked the tool he used to send the picture.
There's no criminal record involved because he wasn't charged with or convicted of a crime. You might as well claim that I'm arguing the death penalty should apply even though nobody was charged with a crime so no criminal penalty is even being considered.
Yes, a 14 year old is still "a boy". The problem is the people who think that being "a boy" is an excuse to do things you know are wrong and avoid all consequences of that action.
So tell me, in what benighted universe are we to hold them responsible for their sexual foibles
In the same universe where we don't just pat them on the head and say "isn't that sweet" when they do other illegal things that they should know are wrong. I'm sorry, but fourteen year olds are not "children" by every definition, they are old enough to know that some things are not appropriate. And this one demonstrated that he knew it was wrong because he used a service that was designed to delete the image. If it wasn't wrong, why shouldn't she be allowed to keep that image of him?
And sign in if you want a response next time, Obfuscant.
I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. You didn't respond to me, you responded to someone else. If you wanted to respond to me, you could have. There's a "reply" option on every message I post.
She then sends the picture to host of other people with the clear intent to hurt the boy, but that's fine.
Nobody said that was fine. They said that were she over 18 she could have been charged with "revenge porn" -- which is saying that it isn't fine, just that she's too young to be charged. And they didn't say she didn't end up on the same list, only that there was no information available to know she had.
How was he distributing the picture and she wasn't?
What else is there to talk about here except for the complete lack of individual human rights?
I'm confused. Are you claiming that it is your "individual human right" to send naked pictures of yourself to any girl you might happen to know? How about her "individual human right" not to have pictures of your junk show up on her phone?
Or is it her "individual human right" to distribute that naked picture of you that you sent with the explicit intent that it be deleted soon after being received?
Whose "individual human rights" are we talking about here? And when did distributing porn to unsuspecting recipients, and then distribution of that to others as a way of exacting revenge, become a "human right"?
A right is protection against government oppression, this is a case of government oppressing a 14 year old child...
And I thought the scene with the muck collectors from Monty Python was ridiculous. "Help help, I'm being oppressed because I can't send pictures of my willy to every girl I know..."
Slashdot Mirror
At least you've got it better than my generation,
You know, there were proposals to create an optional market-based system that your generation could choose to participate in, but the people who proposed that were accused of trying to kill old people by eliminating social security. AARP isn't going to get smaller in the future, it's going to get larger, and those people vote.
and it's that first generation who fucked them.
No, it will be the generation that actually breaks the promises by eliminating the system. If that happens to be your generation and you benefit from that, then you get the blame, not people from 50 or 100 years ago.
Basically, if you build a labor saving device for your factory (so you can get a benefit from it), it seems fair you should return some of the benefit to the people whose labor was replaced.
Why does it seem fair?
Under this argument, if I clean out my rain gutters (so I benefit from having clean gutters and save the money I would have had to pay someone) I should send a check to all the local gutter cleaning services in the area to "return some of the benefit to the people whose labor was replaced" by my own. And every lawn mower sold would have a tax added to the purchase (and a regular tax from then on) to be sent to the local lawn care companies to "return some of the benefit to the people whose labor was replaced".
And, of course, the price of the lawnmower would be higher because the lawnmower manufacturer would have to send regular payments to the "Amalgamated Push Mower Operator's Union", whose labor was replaced by the gasoline engine.
And then imagine the cost of the payments to "Buggy Driver's Local 347" and "Union of Buggy Whip Employees" by every automobile owner...
The alternative is the present situation where automation is feared and discouraged because we need jobs for everyone.
If you are only returning SOME of the benefits, then those who are displaced are still "losing" money and they still have a reason to oppose automation, and those who actually DO the automation will have less reason to do it, so under your idea there is even less encouragement to automate anything.
1. Eliminate all low-income welfare programs - there are a TON of these
And you'll have every welfare recipient sending you form letters opposing this and promising to vote you out.
2. Eliminate social security
Have you not heard how those awful Republicans want to kill off social security and all the old people because they want to create an OPTIONAL alternate system that people can CHOOSE to participate in INSTEAD of being forced to pay into a Ponzi scheme called SSI? Not get rid of anything, just create an alternative, and they are now the party of death for old people.
And here you expect to survive an explicit call to end social security altogether. Well, guess what? I'll be one of the people opposing you, because I've had money taken from me all my working life to pay into that system, and now you want to say "too bad, so sad, the promises that were made to you to support this tax on your income are not going to be kept."
"But we'll replace that with a $2k/month check! Isn't that better?" You're going to send $2k checks to everyone, even people who have never worked a day in their life. How is getting the same thing that lazy good-for-nothings get after I worked ard for a lifetime "better"?
I'll tell you what. I'll support this system IF you go back thirty years and add up all the medicare and social security taxes that have been deducted from my wages, and employer contribution to those that I could have been paid, and hand me a lump-sum check for that amount (plus interest). Then I'll go on your "basic income" plan and retire tomorrow, living tax free for the rest of my life. Sounds fair to me.
4. Eliminate most low-income student support programs (school lunches, etc...)
Oh my God. Think of the Children (TM)! Children cannot learn if they don't have breakfast and lunch provided by the government, because we know that the parents aren't able to provide it for them. And they must get free lunches during the summer, too. These handouts are not just for poor kids, they're for every kid, so if parents who make $50k a year cannot take care of this for their own kids, then how can you even begin to imagine that someone making just $24k/year could do it?
5. Eliminate most V.A. support programs, which is basically welfare as well
Excuse me, but the Veterans Administration is providing services to those people who served our country in the military and were promised this support for doing so. You want to ignore the promises made to the working people by eliminating social security, and now you want to break every promise made to our veterans.
6. Government pensioners can probably have their pension payments removed from the minimum income (IE you don't get a pension AND basic income)
And government workers, may of whom worked for less than market for many years based on promises of a better pension, are the next target. In Oregon, the public employees unions explicitly negotiated contracts in time of tight budgets to delay inflation-based pay raises for the promise of more pension when they retired. Now that they are retiring, guess who are the targets of belt-tightening and complaints? Yep, those employees who were promised a dollar tomorrow for a hamburger yesterday.
And you'd break every promise to those people by eliminating the pensions they paid into for so many years.
7. Eliminate make-work/stimulus programs
If there is no stimulus to work, why bother? Who is going to do the dirty work of keeping infrastructure in place if they can simply take money every month for doing nothing? You are going to have to have a stimulus to get people who are getting a "basic income" for doing nothing to do something extra.
You can probably eliminate unemployment insurance, minimum wage,
Yes, you can eliminate those "handouts". T
Then the drone doesn't take off because it's not getting the signal for it's control system properly...
Wait a minute there. The proposal was for a beacon to be installed in places where there was a no-fly zone, like airports or at wildfire TFR sites. Now you say that if there ISN'T a valid beacon signal received then the drone won't take off. So that requires beacons to be EVERYWHERE that drones CAN fly -- which is a hell of a lot of places.
As for the beacons, who's talking about selling them?
1. If they are going to be installed someplace, someone has to sell them.
2. You replied to my fake voiceover for an infomercial selling them, so I was talking about it as a way of pointing out how trivial it would be to game the system.
Operating them without a license is illegal, and you're broadcasting right where you are...
Yes, operating a transmitter without a license is illegal. You aren't broadcasting where you are, you are transmitting a radio signal that someone will have to locate. If you are transmitting only when your daughters are out in the back yard using the swimming pool, it is unlikely that anyone will be able to do that. And if you are using a beacon jammer, you're already planning to break the law by flying your drone where you would need to jam the signal, and you are only going to be transmitting when you are flying. Your chance of getting caught is infinitely small.
...And you completely ignored my previous paragraph, not to mention the 'like some other posters have presented' (I should have said proposed)
I replied to your comment about physical barriers being required before you can charge someone with committing a felony.
I'm willing to count an officer telling you 'don't come back here' as a barrier. You should NOT be able to get one by 'merely' making a wrong turn or flying a drone.
Yes, I'm would count that, too. BUT that is still stupid. I'm sorry, it just is. You're saying that if there isn't a police officer standing there telling you "don't rob that guy", you shouldn't be charged with a felony when you do it. You're saying that if there isn't a police officer standing there telling you not to fly your drone within 15 miles of Regan International Airport you shouldn't be charged with a felony -- even if you are doing it deliberately to interfere with manned aircraft.
That's what "You should NOT be able to get one by 'merely' making a wrong turn or flying a drone" means. Yes, if you go up the exit ramp of a freeway and run into someone and kill them, you should be charged with a felony even if there is no physical barrier to your doing so. If you fly a drone over a crowd and it crashes into someone and kills them, you should be charged with a felony even if there is no physical barrier stopping you from doing it.
As for new law mandating the drone protection, it could be done without law by a trade group or something.
No, it cannot. You REALLY want trade groups writings laws? You REALLY want RIAA and MPAA writing laws? If it isn't a law, then you haven't "put it on someone's head".
By the way, were you aware that movie ratings don't have the force of law behind them?
What do movie ratings have to do with felonious operation of drones? What an absurd nonsequitor.
Enjoy your $1k fine from the FCC. Existing law, not new law.
I was attempting to point out in a humorous way how this beacon system could be abused by those who wanted to, not specifically that they'd sell them a 3AM on a cable channel. Yes, selling them would be illegal, already. Distributing information on how to take a Baofeng $40 radio and turn it into a beacon transmitter is less illegal. And websites with information on how to clip the beacon receiver antenna would be legion.
I wasn't adding another law. I was proposing adding a physical system
Which would require a new law to force manufacturers to include a beacon receiver, and another law that would make it illegal to disable a beacon receiver. That's not an existing law, so yes, you are proposing new laws. If you want it to be "on someone's head" that they disabled the beacon receiver and flew where they shouldn't, then you're wanting a law for the first part in addition to existing law for the second.
I happen to think that's wrong. You should have to break a barrier - an actual obvious barrier, before you're hit with a felony like some other posters have presented.
You mean like when you point a gun at someone and tell them to give you all their money, the little pop-up window that appears in your line of sight that says "you're about to commit a felony -- click OK or CANCEL"? I'm sorry, but it just isn't feasible to put physical barriers in front of everyone who is about to commit a felony that require them to explicitly acknowledge their desire to do so.
You're never going to stop no-fly zone intrusions.
That's right.
The idea here is that we eliminate the 'vast majority' of unintentional intrusions by having an automatic system in place.
And I'm pointing out the problem with that system and how easily it can and will be abused. Note that I didn't say it should not or could not be tried, but I think the cost will greatly outweigh the benefit because it will be gamed very easily.
You point out that the DC zone is intruded in a few times a year. I dare say that it is a lot more than that, but that the vast, huge majority of times it is innocuous and meaningless intrusions. Someone gets a $40 toy helicopter and flies it in the backyard. Stuff like that. Installing beacons and forcing those toys to have beacon receivers will not fix any significant problem.
Yes, it probably would have stopped the moron at the US Open. It might have stopped the moron who flew one into the Whitehouse lawn. But the people who actually want to do bad things will know how to disable the beacon system, so you won't stop them. All you will do is add yet another law (against disabling the beacon receiver or the no-fly function it implements) on top of the do-not-fly law, on top of the law against whatever the basic bad thing they wanted to do was.
if it detects a specific beacon signal
"If you call within the next ten minutes, we'll double your order. That's right, not one, but two 'no-fly beacons' for the price of one (just pay additional shipping and handling)."
with the idea that it's on the operator's head if they hack their drone so it ignores the signal.
It's already on the operator's head if they fly stupidly. Will adding another law stop someone who is already breaking the law?
And goody goody, /. is playing games with the "disable ads" system again.
If they can forcibly stop a car from entering an active crime scene or fire area, they can do this.
A car entering a fire area is an object the size of, well, a car, traveling on a two-dimensional surface via limited routes. Pretty easy to block those routes to keep them out.
A quadcopter is a device with a size on the order of a football, traveling in a three-dimensional space without roads. How do you forcibly block them from entering? "Under the Dome" is fiction, by the way.
So basically have all technology set to be controlled by the government just in case they need to?
so basically you've decided to argue with something that nobody said
He's actually quite right, and pointing out an obvious side-effect of any "no-fly" system. Where do you think the "no-fly zones" come from? It's not happy little elves working in a North Pole workshop. They come from -- the FAA. "Government". Sometimes at the request of -- other government agencies (USFS, for forest fire TFRs, e.g.) or sometimes corporations (TFRs around sporting events.) If this system was implemented, what do you think it would take to ground all cooperating systems? Right -- one TFR from the FAA covering the entire US.
It will never happen? Remember 9/11?
Here's the real problem with this idea. There are sometimes reasons why flight should be authorized within a TFR or otherwise restricted area. Even on 9/11 and shortly thereafter, there were a limited number of flights allowed.
Any such system would have to include the "awareness" of the UAV that it is being used for an authorized purpose and not allow someone to just tell it "you're flying for an authorized purpose".
The Pi is as capable as a desktop PC.
I didn't say it wasn't. I corrected the erroneous statement that it was designed for such uses.
You are incorrect when you state the Pi is only useful "to teach kids about computers".
Since I didn't say that, what's your problem?
You can use it for English class as well as any other computer.
I also didn't say it couldn't be used for that. What I did say is that this teacher is going out of his way to create a digital divide where none is needed, and that the Pi is not a good answer to solving the problem he is creating. He's taking kids who are supposed to be learning English and potentially giving them(or telling them to buy) an RPi, which forces them to learn how to deal with a Pi and Linux and apt-get and HDMI and power supplies instead of learning English -- which is what he is paid to teach.
His final answer should be "you can turn in handwritten work", and there won't be You Tube videos for homework. If it is "find an old computer and get it running Word ..." then he's way over the line in his subject matter and needs to be replaced. Isn't it hard enough for people who don't have a support structure for elementary school classwork to just do the classwork, and isn't piling on a load of extra crap just helping to create a have/have-not society?
but they make neat serialized and tamper-evident zip ties for this purpose that are designed to be both difficult to remove without obvious damage and impossible to replace with off-the-shelf equivalents.
Neither thieves nor TSA care about replacing your serial-numbered tamper-evident zip ties with something that looks the same, nor do they care if they cause damage when they remove them. You are notified prior to checking your baggage that it is subject to search. If you try to hinder that search, they will simply cut their way in.
And having a serial-numbered tamper-evident zip tie isn't as good an indicator that your bag has been entered and something taken as the fact that something is missing. That zip tie will be in the waste basket of the departure airport, probably hundreds of miles away, doing nothing to protect your baggage. It's a waste of money. At best, it calls attention to your bag out of the hundreds of other possible targets as being more likely to contain something interesting.
Zip-Tie man below is probably right, its better to use a market zip-tie rather than a lock now.
I can think of few better ways to get a TSA baggage inspector to rip the pulls off your bag and damage the zipper than to use zip-ties to close it. He gets to choose what to look into and he can't do them all, so what bag may contain more interesting stuff? (Yours!) Then he can either 1) cut the tie or 2) insert a screwdriver or other thin metal implement between the pulls and the bag and twist until something gives. (1) is more polite and less damaging. (2) is faster and teaches you a lesson. Hmmm, which one do you you think will be chosen?
You can't trust the lock manufacturers to make good locks when an agency has undermined the whole purpose of a lock.
If you think the purpose of a baggage lock is to securely lock your valuables so that they cannot be stolen, then it is you who has the misunderstanding of the purpose. The only real purpose of a lock on luggage is to keep the zipper from coming unzipped using a reusable device. (A zip-tie does the former, fails miserably on the latter.)
The only reason I use these locks is because too many suitcases and travel bags are prone to opening when handled by the airline's gorillas that toss your baggage around.
I used to think this, then I realized that it costs much more to replace luggage which has had the zipper pulls removed and zippers damaged by TSA "inspectors" who didn't care that it was a TSA-approved lock and they just wrench the lock off the suitcase.
And if you complain, consider this: what's a great source of names for the no-fly list? Those complaint forms ...
However, if the TSA thinks that the master key system was secure,
What makes you think anyone in TSA believe(s/d) the master key system was secure? Are they the same ones that think searching Gramma to keep her from sneaking a nuke on board is the right way to find terrorists?
My feeling is that a Raspberry Pi is about the best option you're going to find. This is what it was designed for, after all.
Actually, it isn't. It is designed to teach kids about computers, not to teach kids English.
I'm with the "stop demanding online access for an English class" and "you're creating a digital divide where none needs to exist" crowd.
Is there any official government group that releases previously-secured messages that anyone refers to as "ops"?
There are, of course, people whose job it is to create sanitized summaries of classified information for dissemination to those people who are not authorized the unedited versions. They're the ones who redact or summarize so that the other, unclassified information can be used by people who need it while not letting the classified stuff get out.
The subordinates who Clinton was pressing for copies of classified material would, correctly, be dealing with those people whose job it was to redact; it would be her subordinates who were "copying" email to her server by forwarding her copies as she was ordering them to.
I wasn't necessarily arguing that it was the correct people who were doing the summarizing, just that what I assumed was that the reference was an informal one to them and not the people she employed.
So some group known as "ops" is going to "convert" a message from the classified message system to "the unclassified email system"? That's go-to-prison stuff right there.
No, sanitizing classified material and releasing unclassified versions is their job. No "go to prison" there.
'Go-to-prison' comes in when someone orders a subordinate to send them a copy classified material over an insecure communications system. It also disproves any "I didn't know" defense.
Should she have switched to a government-provided e-mail account? Probably. I don't say, "absolutely," specifically because of the high profile leaks ...
Leaks or not, the law says she was supposed to use her secure government-provided email for work. She ignored that law.
As an aside, Governor Palin used private e-mail for government functions too,
Sarah Palin was not in a position to deal with classified material on a regular basis, and therefore the only laws she violated were public records laws. Clinton violated those laws as well as security regulations.
It was harmless. As in, according to the story, there was no harm caused.
I do not think the word means what you think it means.
I have an old unexploded mortar shell from WWII. Since it hasn't exploded -- yet -- it is harmless. Yes?
but unless someone actually got hit I think the endangerment charge is overblown.
Endangerment doesn't mean "did cause damage", it means "creating a dangerous situation". And "reckless" is an important word.
You can endanger others on a daily basis, like by driving a car (which creates a danger to pedestrians, for example) but not be guilty of "reckless endangerment" because you are taking appropriate actions to mitigate the risk. You obey the basic speed limit, you signal lane changes, you don't use a handheld cellphone while driving, etc.
And just like for drivers, "reckless endangerment" doesn't require an actual injury or accident, only the disregard for safety. Someone who speeds through town and leads the cops on a merry chase at high speed may not have hit anyone, but he's certainly committed "reckless endangerment", just like a pilot who buzzes his neighbor's house does.
when someone does something stupid and not allowed in a public place like that the response is usually to simply ask them to stop and not do it again
Yes, sans injuries or accident, that is often how such a violation is handled. But when there is an accident, you've reached the point where it becomes appropriate to take some legal action just so the notoriety of the accident followed by no legal response doesn't give people the idea that doing the same thing is ok.
The fact that he disrupted the event was at issue,
No, the fact that he operated his drone in a reckless manner that endangered people was the issue. You can disrupt an event without committing "reckless endangerment".
the municipal broadband is on a level playing field with Comcast that got a monopoly for many years to bootstrap it
Non-exclusive franchises are not monopolies. Municipal broadband gets to write their own rules for what service they can provide, Comcast did not. The field is not "level".
So no, it REALLY, REALLY (i'm for real about this) is a price vs. performance decision.
Yes, it is, and one of the prices that has to be considered is the tax money that is already going to cover the losses of the municipal operation and the interest from any loans that were used to issue bonds to cover the buildout.
I know you're sentiments are well founded, but in all likelihood, what we are typing right here, right now will be on our records forever.
Yes, it will. Are you trying to equate posting here with sending naked pictures of yourself to 14 year old girls?
I'll point out that this UK list is nothing unusual. Every time someone calls the cops on someone in the US, that information goes into a database they can access for future reference. That's for both the suspect AND the person who calls. "Have we dealt with this person before" is a question that is important when considering whether the activity is simply "stupid" or has risen to the level of "harassment" or "intentional". That applies to both sides. "We've been called to this house and spoken to Bob about his loud parties three times now, we need to write a ticket instead of a warning", as well as "Frank has called us about the UFOs buzzing his house five times now, maybe we need to give social services a call."
Why are you confused?
Because someone is claiming that basic "human rights" are being violated and the kid is being oppressed. I want to know what "human right" we're talking about. Can you tell me? Is there a basic "human right" to send pictures of your willy to any girl you know? What has the world come to when we make such nonsense a "human right"?
I won't be scarred for life and neither will this girl.
You don't know this, and it isn't your place to judge on her behalf. Nobody was thrown into a gulag over this.
You may personally not mind if someone breaks into your house and takes your television. You think you watch too much TV anyway, and that person obviously needs the money or TV more than you do. But that's not a valid argument for saying that burglary isn't wrong, just as you not minding if people send you naked pictures of themselves is an argument against it being wrong when others are the recipients.
Now, if the kid didn't want the picture distributed by her, he should've known better.
Wait a minute. He can't be expected to "know better" when it comes to whether it is appropriate to send the picture in the first place, but he is supposed to "know better" that the girl would know how to bypass the "delete automatically" feature of snapchat? "Should have known better" is a two-edged sword here.
You have a brain, use it. Justify why you think such a lasting mark like a predator list is warranted
It wasn't a lasting mark on a predator list.
for 'a' picture sent probably to a crush.
I have a "crush" on your teenage daughter. You won't mind if I send her naked pictures of myself, then? She can just delete them if she doesn't want to see them, and it won't cause her any harm, right? It's harmless fun.
This seems like a case of 'stupid kid' not a case of a hardened pervert, and should be treated as such.
That's why he got such a light slap on the wrist and isn't standing in a dock facing a judge. And nobody is saying he should be.
You're arguing that it's acceptable to have laws that give children who make mistakes a criminal record.
No, I'm arguing that at 14 he should already know that what he did is wrong, and that he demonstrated his knowledge when he picked the tool he used to send the picture.
There's no criminal record involved because he wasn't charged with or convicted of a crime. You might as well claim that I'm arguing the death penalty should apply even though nobody was charged with a crime so no criminal penalty is even being considered.
Yes, a 14 year old is still "a boy". The problem is the people who think that being "a boy" is an excuse to do things you know are wrong and avoid all consequences of that action.
So tell me, in what benighted universe are we to hold them responsible for their sexual foibles
In the same universe where we don't just pat them on the head and say "isn't that sweet" when they do other illegal things that they should know are wrong. I'm sorry, but fourteen year olds are not "children" by every definition, they are old enough to know that some things are not appropriate. And this one demonstrated that he knew it was wrong because he used a service that was designed to delete the image. If it wasn't wrong, why shouldn't she be allowed to keep that image of him?
And sign in if you want a response next time, Obfuscant.
I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. You didn't respond to me, you responded to someone else. If you wanted to respond to me, you could have. There's a "reply" option on every message I post.
She then sends the picture to host of other people with the clear intent to hurt the boy, but that's fine.
Nobody said that was fine. They said that were she over 18 she could have been charged with "revenge porn" -- which is saying that it isn't fine, just that she's too young to be charged. And they didn't say she didn't end up on the same list, only that there was no information available to know she had.
How was he distributing the picture and she wasn't?
She was, and the article said she was.
What else is there to talk about here except for the complete lack of individual human rights?
I'm confused. Are you claiming that it is your "individual human right" to send naked pictures of yourself to any girl you might happen to know? How about her "individual human right" not to have pictures of your junk show up on her phone?
Or is it her "individual human right" to distribute that naked picture of you that you sent with the explicit intent that it be deleted soon after being received?
Whose "individual human rights" are we talking about here? And when did distributing porn to unsuspecting recipients, and then distribution of that to others as a way of exacting revenge, become a "human right"?
A right is protection against government oppression, this is a case of government oppressing a 14 year old child...
And I thought the scene with the muck collectors from Monty Python was ridiculous. "Help help, I'm being oppressed because I can't send pictures of my willy to every girl I know..."