If I don't have full control over my drone, then I shouldn't be flying it.
Then I didn't have full control.
Then you would never fly your UAV ever, because you can NEVER have full control over every possible thing. If you call a gust of wind that works faster than you can respond on the controls "not being in full control", then you are truly never in full control. What happens if the radio link fails? You lose control. The wind is just a very common thing that you can't control and happens at a moment's notice.
If it is legal for other people to shoot it down, then that pretty much implies that I am not allowed to fly it there.
No, it doesn't.
I think you are arguing in circles. You are assuming that this is a stupid, self-contradictory law written by complete morons that makes things both legal and illegal at the same time.
No, that is not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing it is a stupid law because it strips property rights from citizens and supports the destruction of private property when there is nothing illegal happening at all. It supports the destruction of government property when there may be nothing illegal taking place.
No other hunting license allows the anyone to hunt on park land or hunt on private property without the owner's permission. Why do you assume this is different?
I don't know how you came up with this. One example was specifically your UAV being blown over the property line by a gust of wind, and the shooting takes place on their own property. Clearly you must approve of this, then. What if the shooter thinks it is over his property but didn't judge correctly? Oops, sorry. But thanks, the wind blew the pieces over onto my land, I'm taking them downtown and getting my bounty. Too bad for you.
This hunting license promotes that kind of activity. You support the law, apparently, so it must be ok with you, right?
Read and weep: or at least prepare to get really pissed!
Why would I need to prepare when I was alluding to this kind of stuff already? If I was making noises claiming that it ok for people to destroy my property because a nitwit town council voted to make it ok, I'd have to think that eminent domain for commercial gain was perfectly ok, too. Vox populi, after all.
The valet parking lot is not close to the airport terminal.
Sigh yourself. The parking lot is not close to the terminal BUT THE SERVICE IS.
You get out at the terminal, hand your keys to the valet and he drives it to the valet lot...
Yes, you leave it with the valet service at the terminal. And then sometime later the valet drives it to the lot. Until then, it's parked, unattended, next to the terminal.
Any opportunity to bomb the terminal ends the minute he drives away.
And runs from when you leave the car until a valet actually drives it away. Busy terminal, busy valets, could be a hour. Could be more. Could be less.
So why would a search be justified?
Because your car is parked for an unknown amount of time near the terminal, unattended.
Portland Oregon had just completed a large multi-level parking garage just across the road from the main terminal and near the tower when this went into effect. Basically, millions of taxpayer dollars spent building a garage nobody could park in. The rules have relaxed now and people can park there, but as I recall, there are signs at the entrance saying that parking there is authorization to search.
If I don't have full control over my drone, then I shouldn't be flying it.
I didn't say you didn't have full control over your drone. I said a gust of wind blew it.
Park land belongs to the government, and if they say "no drones", then I have no right to fly it there.
Another non-response. They didn't say you can't fly your drone there, this is a law that says someone else may shoot it down and take it to the city hall and get paid for it.
I don't live in Deer Trail.
Sigh. So pretend you live in Deer Trail and this law is being discussed, and you realize that your personally owned property can be shot out of the air just because you own it. Do you approve of that law now?
My drone is not, and should not be, illegal.
That is the attitude expressed by at least one person here.
But flying it over other people's property without their permission, should be illegal.
The airspace is controlled by the federal government. Interstate commerce. Why should it be illegal for your UAV to go over someone else's property? Why should they have the right to destroy it because it drifted off course for a few seconds? Should it be illegal for me to fly my manned aircraft over someone else's property? Was it ok for the soviets to shoot down KAL007 because it was over "their property"?
Nothing in this ridiculous law says that the drone (or operator) has to be doing anything illegal when it is shot down. It's a blanket open season and bounty on any UAV that looks like it might belong to the US government, whether it does or not, whatever it may be doing.
Car bombs? You must be joking, right? Valet parking isn't going to be anywhere near the terminal. That's why you need a valet.
Of course valet parking is near the terminal. That's why it is convenient -- you don't have to wait for a shuttle or walk large distances. You stop the car, hand the keys to the valet, and go to the checkin.
The valet isn't there to drive you to the airport, he's there to park your car. If you need someone to drive you to the door of the airport, you need a taxi or limo driver, not a valet.
I don't fly it over other people's private property without their permission. If I did, I would have little right to complain if they shot it down.
So a gust of wind comes up and your drone is blown over your next door neighbors property, and he pulls out a shotgun and blows it away. And then takes the parts down to city hall and gets a bounty for it. How cool is that?
Or he sees it flying at the park and shoots it down. As the law is being reported, there is no limit to where, except within city limits I assume, a drone can be shot down.
You like that law? You think your drone is illegal just by itself?
If the People say they don`t want drones over their heads, and the People`s Representatives truly "represent" vox populi,
So if the majority of the city council decided to condemn your home, tear it down, and sell the land to McDonalds, you'd be fine with that because it was "vox populi"?
The ordinance doesn't say that the drone has to belong to the US government or even be flying at the time. All it has to have is "markings similar to" the markings on a kind of UAV known to be owned by the US. That means if you put a US flag decal on your private UAV, well, that's a marking that meets that definition. If your neighbor sees you holding it and shoots it out of your hand, he gets a bounty. Destruction of private property now nets anyone who does it not jail time but a bonus.
Oh, but nobody owns their own UAV, right? I got one for Christmas, and I've seen them in the stores for about $30.
THE DRONE ITSELF IS ILLEGAL.
What utter and complete nonsense. You may have the opinion that the use of a UAV in a certain manner may violate the constitution using your own interpretation of same, but claiming that "the drone itself is illegal" is just pathetic. In fact, your claim to "vox populi" shoots you in the foot on this one, since there is no "vox populi" laws making them illegal.
Question to my mind is why they're using unsigned numbers. Are there no situations where they'd want to store a negative balance?
They clearly aren't using unsigned numbers since the huge number on the statement HAS A MINUS SIGN IN FRONT OF IT. And one of the two activities listed on the statement is also negative.
I expect them to show restraint and abide by the law we charge them with upholding.
Which law? The one that doesn't exist yet saying they can't ask for records of phone locations from a cellphone company? Or the one that says that the government cannot search your belongings or you?
'Thou shalt not troll for crime amongst the citizenry' should be an oath every LEO takes. O wait they already do when they swear to uphold the Constitution....
I'm sorry, but where in the Constitution does it say that? Are you seriously trying to argue that something there prohibits police patrols on the public streets? "Troll for crime" is a perfect description of a that activity. It's even part of the word.
My government shouldn't be compiling lists and connections and vast meta data on its citizenry.
You've now stepped beyond the topic of this discussion, which is getting cellphone tracking data on an individual.
I think you've got that one covered already, it's called the 4th amendment.
The 4th amendment uses subjective words like "unreasonable". And "process of law". And the term "search". Are you really being subjected to a search when a company you do business with is giving away information about you that you didn't give them in the first place? Is it an unreasonable search of your person or property if someone tells the police "I saw Mashiki in the grocery store yesterday"?
Too bad you guys have spent decades deciding that the Constitution is a 'living breathing document' instead of a foundational document which is immutable.
It's very hard to claim that the Constitution is immutable when the Constitution itself contains the instructions for how to change it.
meaning that if I get letters from them now offering services I repeatedly tell them I don't want, then I can sue them (or at least rat them out and get them a huge fine).
The web page linked in TFA that talks about this law says nothing about letters, only electronic communications like email.
I, for one, look forward to our new lack of unsolicited snail-mail.
My exact reaction. A neighbor's kid goes missing, law enforcement needs timely info, and people are complaining?
Of course. Someone in a large city 90 minutes away is not "a neighbor", and the chance that I have any information about their missing kid is precisely ZERO (unless I am the abductor, and then I already know about the missing kid and am very unlikely to give information to the police about it.) And yet, I've gotten Amber alerts for just such an occurance.
If it was your kid, you'd want the National Guard called in.
The National Guard does not use Amber Alerts for notification, nor do they need EAS or WEAS messages to be activated. They have phone trees so they can be called personally, and much sooner than at 4AM for a 2PM abduction. Further, they have all opted-in to such calls.
As for the people who aren't going to look, there's still a group of people who know the car.
Yes, they're called "the police" and "public sector employees who work on the streets", and they, too, do not need EAS or WEAS to be notified of the vehicle to be looking for. The police, at least, have government-provided cell phones upon which they can receive calls or notifications, and have opted in for such. They also have very expensive radio communication systems that can broadcast the information.
Now, as a public spirited citizen, I'm sure you want to get such notices on a regular basis. That's fine. The issue is not the notifications themselves, but that apparently some cell providers (and all landline services like this) opt people in and do not allow opting out, and that some providers don't allow either opting out or silent modes for alerts.
You could, of course, tell me I must shut my phone off if I want to use it for the things I want to use it for and not allow the government to decide what I must hear and in what form, but that's a ridiculous position. I'm paying for the ability to use the phone when I need it, and I have services that I do need to get immediate notifications from. The fact that I have opted in to be on call 24/7 for local search and rescue should not mean I must be on call 24/7 for Amber alerts and have those alerts delivered with an abusively loud sound no matter where I am or what time of day it is.
What next, go beyond wireless and automatically phone every land line?
You're at least two years late for that party. Yes, automatically phone every land line.
Our local government has contracted with this company to do just that. Whenever they want to let us all know of some problem, this is how they'll let us know.
Fortunately, there has yet to be an instance when they decided to use this for real. Perhaps that's because when they tested the system (during the day) they actually had to activate the emergency operations center and bring people in to answer the phones, because of the volume of calls from people who got home and found the message on their answering machine and called 911 to find out what was going on. That's after a saturation blitz on news and radio telling people that there would be a test of this system and when it was going to happen.
Or perhaps they've had second thoughts about the system after I spent 30 minutes on the phone with the company, and another hour on the phone with the local government droid responsible for the system, explaining the phrases "opt out" and "opt in" and that I was choosing to opt out of such a moronic system. (The answer was: you cannot opt out. The FTC do-not-call list does not apply. There is no provision in the software to opt anyone out. The laws regarding direct instructions to someone not to call again do not apply.)
Or perhaps I actually was successful in opting out and they've been reporting all kinds of bad things going on to everyone else and I've just lucky to still be alive.
This is so incredibly stupid it isn't funny -- if you have a missing child, don't call me about it.
The idea that they are wasting millions of people's time forcing people to deal with Amber alerts is not understandable to them. Think of the children.
Whereas you, with your sneaking, sneering faux-politeness...what have you done?
I'm sorry that you have considered everyone who has ever been polite to you as "sneaking, sneering, and faux", and that nobody who has ever been polite has done anything of consequence in your opinion. Perhaps the latter has some bearing on why you believe the former?
While nothing is ever 100% provable... but they're complete enough that "The universe winked into instance 6000 years ago" has become an obviously false mechanism.
You started out right and then took a quick U-turn at the end. "Obviously false"? "Winked" is not the correct verb. I think you are not speaking pedantically and are instead making an offhand reference to literal interpretation creationism.
There are people on this planet who make a living fooling others. They copy something of value and pass it off as the real thing. Some of them are very good at it. Sometimes they even fool the experts. A work of art that was allegedly painted in 1600 was actually painted in 2000. How could this be? Because the "artist" went to great lengths to duplicate the materials and methods that would make it look like the painting was done 400 years ago instead of 10.
Piltdown Man. The missing link in 1920. A fake in 1953.
Now, if there is a being that can create a universe by speaking a word, do you not imagine that he could create it in such a way that it looked billions of years old to a human? To a being for whom time is irrelevant, do you not think he could speed up or slow down physical processes so that even if they began in the state we assume they did they would achieve a state we assume they would be in 13.7Gy later? If a human can fool other humans, how can you claim that a God cannot? Are you trying to claim that God is some kind of rube who can't figure out how to skip past the "coming attraction" ads when playing a DVD he rented? If God DID create the universe he must have done it 13.7Gy ago and he couldn't possibly have fast-forwarded through the boring bits to get to the interesting parts: humans? I'm not trying to convince you that is what happened, but I'm talking specifically to your claim of "obviously false". It is only "obviously false" because you assume as false that which you want to be false, and then the natural result is that what you've assumed to be false, is.
If you want to talk about "who" did it well then we can take that to the logical extreme as well -- God is also responsible for the scientists who figured all those theories out being there in the first place, so therefore belief in God itself proves creationism false.
What an absurd line of reasoning. God created scientists who claim God does not exist, therefore God does not exist? That's your argument in a nutshell. You're assuming what you need to prove -- that scientists are right -- to prove that scientists are right. You're ignoring that those theories deal with process and not actor. And you're abandoning the true meaning of "theory" in your attempt at religion-bashing.
All you have is faith, and faith alone is not a scientifically valid argument.
In science these are called "assumptions". Belief in things unseen. Nobody was around to measure the rate of radioactive decay 10,000 years ago, yet the assumption is that it was the same as what is measured today. From this faith comes the age of the Earth. Assumptions are all around us in science, yet few seem to understand (or just admit) their significance.
In high school, I was fascinated by geometry. Five assumptions lead to all of Euclidian geometry. But what if one or more of those assumptions are wrong? Lobachevsky was someone who questioned the assumptions about parallel lines. Now, in our local bit of space (which has been expanding over time) Euclid seems to be right. The universe is a large place. He's not "obviously right" (nor Lobachevsky "obviously wrong") when you consider the size of the problem. Just as Newton wasn't "obviously wrong" about classical physics, nor is what we now know is "obviously wrong" useless.
To be absolutely certain of your claim yes (but then why would you need estimates?)
No. Accuracy does not mean you are absolutely certain of your numbers. It mean
And demanding that people 'act professionally' is demanding that they shut up and do what they're told, because that's what 'acting professionally' means.
No, apparently, acting professionally means not wearing a bathrobe when you work in your home office.
In reality, acting professionally means not being insulting and abusive and treating people like crap because they have an idea you don't like or because they made a mistake. It has nothing to do with how you dress in the privacy of your own home or not being able to tell someone they made a mistake or you don't like their ideas.
You need to have the skin of a thousand rhino and the determination of the super-est of all supermen to push your idea across the many seasoned, and equally thick-skinned developers.
So having a good idea well developed and code that is written cleanly and clearly isn't important, it is more important to be able to browbeat others into liking it.
The so-called "abusive languages" is but a mechanism to weed out ideas which are not fully thought-over.
And here I thought that a clear and concise technical discussion would be a way to weed out ideas that are not fully thought-over. Or simply saying "your idea is not fully developed and it will not appear in the kernel." Who knew that the only way to do that was to be verbally abusive and insulting?
I think it speaks volumes that the concept of "acting professionally" seems to mean only not wearing a bathrobe when in private to some. I think the phrase "unclear on the concept" was developed for people like that.
If you can't stand the heat, dear Sir, I suggest you to get out of the kitchen.
It's interesting you use a kitchen analogy in this discussion. For several years I've been watching Gordon Ramsay in his various rant-prone self-promotional programs. For the last couple of months I've been watching MasterChef on BBC America with Michel Rue. The difference is that Gordon Ramsay is a foul-mouthed abusive fellow who can do nothing but yell and insult the people competing in his programs when they make the tiniest mistake, and Michel Rue's harshest comment has been along the lines of "that needed more seasoning" or "that was too pink for my taste". When Ramsay's folks bring him poorly produced food he throws pans and pots; Rue wrinkles his nose a bit and says "that wasn't your best work". The other difference is that Ramsay's contestants produce zero-star pablum and Rue gets one-star creative performances from his.
It seems one feels the need to express his superiority at every chance, the other wishes to develop talents in others. They are both good at achieving their goals. I'll leave it to the reader to guess which goal I think is more worthy.
And "God did it" is still a reasonable (if unlikely) reason for the Big Bang happening in the first place.
Apples and oranges. Who (or what) is responsible isn't the same thing as "via what mechanism".
The absolutely best they can claim is that the devil
Most creationists don't believe that the devil was responsible for creation.
or maybe God himself, to "test" us -- ie: make sure we don't try to use the big old brains He gave us
Perhaps God did it to give us all something to do with our "big old brains" while we're here on this planet? Most people who "do science" seem to enjoy it. Figuring out how something was done is still interesting, even if you leave out the question of who did it. Why does it matter if "God did it" or "it happened from a random chance accident of random molecules" when one is studying how DNA works?
accuracy within 1% is a reasonable accuracy in many cases
Claims of accuracy require a known correct value. It is precision that deals with repeatability and consistency between numbers of unknown accuracy.
If you seek across the world wild web, you'll find places that give the age of the universe ranging from 16+-5, 12.0+-1.5, 13.7+-0.2, and 9-11 GYears. Over the last few hundred years of that process, scientists have told us that the Earth is 2 GY, between 20 and 400 MY, 22MY, 200 MY, 56 MY, 50-150 MY. Radiometric dating has given answers from 1.3 GY to 3.8 GY. And now, with dedicated certainty, 4.54 GY, ref here.
I don't see anyone having their "big old brains" limited by anything, in fact, lots of "big old brains" have been having a lot of fun working on this. And there is nothing inherent in the statement "God did it" that stops people from being scientists and seeking knowledge.
but seriously we don't blame the heroine or meth for a junkie becoming a junkie.
We do, however, blame the guy standing on the street corner handing out free samples of dope trying to get people hooked.
I blame them for being less perfect than I am, just like this dude is.
FTFY. Humans are an imperfect animal with build in chemical and psychological pathways that can lead to dependency on many different kinds of things. Some people have had enough support early in their lives that they haven't made bad decisions that lead them down the bad pathways; some people haven't. That doesn't make the person pathetic or weak or even simple, it just makes him human.
Hmm, everything you mentioned but one is something is in a combat environment where roadside explosives are not uncommon, and where weapons are fired on a regular basis. Sounds like detecting explosives on such items would be normal.
But lunch meat? Well, once you remember that many explosives are nitro-compounds (nitrate, etc.) and lunch meat contains nitrates as preservatives... and that the CIA is putting nitrates in your koolaid to keep your, shall we say, libidos, from running amok...
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If I don't have full control over my drone, then I shouldn't be flying it.
Then I didn't have full control.
Then you would never fly your UAV ever, because you can NEVER have full control over every possible thing. If you call a gust of wind that works faster than you can respond on the controls "not being in full control", then you are truly never in full control. What happens if the radio link fails? You lose control. The wind is just a very common thing that you can't control and happens at a moment's notice.
If it is legal for other people to shoot it down, then that pretty much implies that I am not allowed to fly it there.
No, it doesn't.
I think you are arguing in circles. You are assuming that this is a stupid, self-contradictory law written by complete morons that makes things both legal and illegal at the same time.
No, that is not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing it is a stupid law because it strips property rights from citizens and supports the destruction of private property when there is nothing illegal happening at all. It supports the destruction of government property when there may be nothing illegal taking place.
No other hunting license allows the anyone to hunt on park land or hunt on private property without the owner's permission. Why do you assume this is different?
I don't know how you came up with this. One example was specifically your UAV being blown over the property line by a gust of wind, and the shooting takes place on their own property. Clearly you must approve of this, then. What if the shooter thinks it is over his property but didn't judge correctly? Oops, sorry. But thanks, the wind blew the pieces over onto my land, I'm taking them downtown and getting my bounty. Too bad for you.
This hunting license promotes that kind of activity. You support the law, apparently, so it must be ok with you, right?
Read and weep: or at least prepare to get really pissed!
Why would I need to prepare when I was alluding to this kind of stuff already? If I was making noises claiming that it ok for people to destroy my property because a nitwit town council voted to make it ok, I'd have to think that eminent domain for commercial gain was perfectly ok, too. Vox populi, after all.
The valet parking lot is not close to the airport terminal.
Sigh yourself. The parking lot is not close to the terminal BUT THE SERVICE IS.
You get out at the terminal, hand your keys to the valet and he drives it to the valet lot ...
Yes, you leave it with the valet service at the terminal. And then sometime later the valet drives it to the lot. Until then, it's parked, unattended, next to the terminal.
Any opportunity to bomb the terminal ends the minute he drives away.
And runs from when you leave the car until a valet actually drives it away. Busy terminal, busy valets, could be a hour. Could be more. Could be less.
So why would a search be justified?
Because your car is parked for an unknown amount of time near the terminal, unattended.
Portland Oregon had just completed a large multi-level parking garage just across the road from the main terminal and near the tower when this went into effect. Basically, millions of taxpayer dollars spent building a garage nobody could park in. The rules have relaxed now and people can park there, but as I recall, there are signs at the entrance saying that parking there is authorization to search.
If I don't have full control over my drone, then I shouldn't be flying it.
I didn't say you didn't have full control over your drone. I said a gust of wind blew it.
Park land belongs to the government, and if they say "no drones", then I have no right to fly it there.
Another non-response. They didn't say you can't fly your drone there, this is a law that says someone else may shoot it down and take it to the city hall and get paid for it.
I don't live in Deer Trail.
Sigh. So pretend you live in Deer Trail and this law is being discussed, and you realize that your personally owned property can be shot out of the air just because you own it. Do you approve of that law now?
My drone is not, and should not be, illegal.
That is the attitude expressed by at least one person here.
But flying it over other people's property without their permission, should be illegal.
The airspace is controlled by the federal government. Interstate commerce. Why should it be illegal for your UAV to go over someone else's property? Why should they have the right to destroy it because it drifted off course for a few seconds? Should it be illegal for me to fly my manned aircraft over someone else's property? Was it ok for the soviets to shoot down KAL007 because it was over "their property"?
Nothing in this ridiculous law says that the drone (or operator) has to be doing anything illegal when it is shot down. It's a blanket open season and bounty on any UAV that looks like it might belong to the US government, whether it does or not, whatever it may be doing.
Car bombs? You must be joking, right? Valet parking isn't going to be anywhere near the terminal. That's why you need a valet.
Of course valet parking is near the terminal. That's why it is convenient -- you don't have to wait for a shuttle or walk large distances. You stop the car, hand the keys to the valet, and go to the checkin.
The valet isn't there to drive you to the airport, he's there to park your car. If you need someone to drive you to the door of the airport, you need a taxi or limo driver, not a valet.
I don't fly it over other people's private property without their permission. If I did, I would have little right to complain if they shot it down.
So a gust of wind comes up and your drone is blown over your next door neighbors property, and he pulls out a shotgun and blows it away. And then takes the parts down to city hall and gets a bounty for it. How cool is that?
Or he sees it flying at the park and shoots it down. As the law is being reported, there is no limit to where, except within city limits I assume, a drone can be shot down.
You like that law? You think your drone is illegal just by itself?
If the People say they don`t want drones over their heads, and the People`s Representatives truly "represent" vox populi,
So if the majority of the city council decided to condemn your home, tear it down, and sell the land to McDonalds, you'd be fine with that because it was "vox populi"?
The ordinance doesn't say that the drone has to belong to the US government or even be flying at the time. All it has to have is "markings similar to" the markings on a kind of UAV known to be owned by the US. That means if you put a US flag decal on your private UAV, well, that's a marking that meets that definition. If your neighbor sees you holding it and shoots it out of your hand, he gets a bounty. Destruction of private property now nets anyone who does it not jail time but a bonus.
Oh, but nobody owns their own UAV, right? I got one for Christmas, and I've seen them in the stores for about $30.
THE DRONE ITSELF IS ILLEGAL.
What utter and complete nonsense. You may have the opinion that the use of a UAV in a certain manner may violate the constitution using your own interpretation of same, but claiming that "the drone itself is illegal" is just pathetic. In fact, your claim to "vox populi" shoots you in the foot on this one, since there is no "vox populi" laws making them illegal.
Question to my mind is why they're using unsigned numbers. Are there no situations where they'd want to store a negative balance?
They clearly aren't using unsigned numbers since the huge number on the statement HAS A MINUS SIGN IN FRONT OF IT. And one of the two activities listed on the statement is also negative.
I expect them to show restraint and abide by the law we charge them with upholding.
Which law? The one that doesn't exist yet saying they can't ask for records of phone locations from a cellphone company? Or the one that says that the government cannot search your belongings or you?
'Thou shalt not troll for crime amongst the citizenry' should be an oath every LEO takes. O wait they already do when they swear to uphold the Constitution....
I'm sorry, but where in the Constitution does it say that? Are you seriously trying to argue that something there prohibits police patrols on the public streets? "Troll for crime" is a perfect description of a that activity. It's even part of the word.
My government shouldn't be compiling lists and connections and vast meta data on its citizenry.
You've now stepped beyond the topic of this discussion, which is getting cellphone tracking data on an individual.
Anyway, if you don't want your car to be tracked, then stop operating deadly machinery on public roads. Should we stop tracking aircraft?
Any deadly aircraft operating on public roads should certainly be tracked.
I think you've got that one covered already, it's called the 4th amendment.
The 4th amendment uses subjective words like "unreasonable". And "process of law". And the term "search". Are you really being subjected to a search when a company you do business with is giving away information about you that you didn't give them in the first place? Is it an unreasonable search of your person or property if someone tells the police "I saw Mashiki in the grocery store yesterday"?
Too bad you guys have spent decades deciding that the Constitution is a 'living breathing document' instead of a foundational document which is immutable.
It's very hard to claim that the Constitution is immutable when the Constitution itself contains the instructions for how to change it.
meaning that if I get letters from them now offering services I repeatedly tell them I don't want, then I can sue them (or at least rat them out and get them a huge fine).
The web page linked in TFA that talks about this law says nothing about letters, only electronic communications like email.
I, for one, look forward to our new lack of unsolicited snail-mail.
Citation required.
My exact reaction. A neighbor's kid goes missing, law enforcement needs timely info, and people are complaining?
Of course. Someone in a large city 90 minutes away is not "a neighbor", and the chance that I have any information about their missing kid is precisely ZERO (unless I am the abductor, and then I already know about the missing kid and am very unlikely to give information to the police about it.) And yet, I've gotten Amber alerts for just such an occurance.
If it was your kid, you'd want the National Guard called in.
The National Guard does not use Amber Alerts for notification, nor do they need EAS or WEAS messages to be activated. They have phone trees so they can be called personally, and much sooner than at 4AM for a 2PM abduction. Further, they have all opted-in to such calls.
As for the people who aren't going to look, there's still a group of people who know the car.
Yes, they're called "the police" and "public sector employees who work on the streets", and they, too, do not need EAS or WEAS to be notified of the vehicle to be looking for. The police, at least, have government-provided cell phones upon which they can receive calls or notifications, and have opted in for such. They also have very expensive radio communication systems that can broadcast the information.
Now, as a public spirited citizen, I'm sure you want to get such notices on a regular basis. That's fine. The issue is not the notifications themselves, but that apparently some cell providers (and all landline services like this) opt people in and do not allow opting out, and that some providers don't allow either opting out or silent modes for alerts.
You could, of course, tell me I must shut my phone off if I want to use it for the things I want to use it for and not allow the government to decide what I must hear and in what form, but that's a ridiculous position. I'm paying for the ability to use the phone when I need it, and I have services that I do need to get immediate notifications from. The fact that I have opted in to be on call 24/7 for local search and rescue should not mean I must be on call 24/7 for Amber alerts and have those alerts delivered with an abusively loud sound no matter where I am or what time of day it is.
What next, go beyond wireless and automatically phone every land line?
You're at least two years late for that party. Yes, automatically phone every land line.
Our local government has contracted with this company to do just that. Whenever they want to let us all know of some problem, this is how they'll let us know.
Fortunately, there has yet to be an instance when they decided to use this for real. Perhaps that's because when they tested the system (during the day) they actually had to activate the emergency operations center and bring people in to answer the phones, because of the volume of calls from people who got home and found the message on their answering machine and called 911 to find out what was going on. That's after a saturation blitz on news and radio telling people that there would be a test of this system and when it was going to happen.
Or perhaps they've had second thoughts about the system after I spent 30 minutes on the phone with the company, and another hour on the phone with the local government droid responsible for the system, explaining the phrases "opt out" and "opt in" and that I was choosing to opt out of such a moronic system. (The answer was: you cannot opt out. The FTC do-not-call list does not apply. There is no provision in the software to opt anyone out. The laws regarding direct instructions to someone not to call again do not apply.)
Or perhaps I actually was successful in opting out and they've been reporting all kinds of bad things going on to everyone else and I've just lucky to still be alive.
This is so incredibly stupid it isn't funny -- if you have a missing child, don't call me about it.
The idea that they are wasting millions of people's time forcing people to deal with Amber alerts is not understandable to them. Think of the children.
Whereas you, with your sneaking, sneering faux-politeness...what have you done?
I'm sorry that you have considered everyone who has ever been polite to you as "sneaking, sneering, and faux", and that nobody who has ever been polite has done anything of consequence in your opinion. Perhaps the latter has some bearing on why you believe the former?
While nothing is ever 100% provable ... but they're complete enough that "The universe winked into instance 6000 years ago" has become an obviously false mechanism.
You started out right and then took a quick U-turn at the end. "Obviously false"? "Winked" is not the correct verb. I think you are not speaking pedantically and are instead making an offhand reference to literal interpretation creationism.
There are people on this planet who make a living fooling others. They copy something of value and pass it off as the real thing. Some of them are very good at it. Sometimes they even fool the experts. A work of art that was allegedly painted in 1600 was actually painted in 2000. How could this be? Because the "artist" went to great lengths to duplicate the materials and methods that would make it look like the painting was done 400 years ago instead of 10.
Piltdown Man. The missing link in 1920. A fake in 1953.
Now, if there is a being that can create a universe by speaking a word, do you not imagine that he could create it in such a way that it looked billions of years old to a human? To a being for whom time is irrelevant, do you not think he could speed up or slow down physical processes so that even if they began in the state we assume they did they would achieve a state we assume they would be in 13.7Gy later? If a human can fool other humans, how can you claim that a God cannot? Are you trying to claim that God is some kind of rube who can't figure out how to skip past the "coming attraction" ads when playing a DVD he rented? If God DID create the universe he must have done it 13.7Gy ago and he couldn't possibly have fast-forwarded through the boring bits to get to the interesting parts: humans? I'm not trying to convince you that is what happened, but I'm talking specifically to your claim of "obviously false". It is only "obviously false" because you assume as false that which you want to be false, and then the natural result is that what you've assumed to be false, is.
If you want to talk about "who" did it well then we can take that to the logical extreme as well -- God is also responsible for the scientists who figured all those theories out being there in the first place, so therefore belief in God itself proves creationism false.
What an absurd line of reasoning. God created scientists who claim God does not exist, therefore God does not exist? That's your argument in a nutshell. You're assuming what you need to prove -- that scientists are right -- to prove that scientists are right. You're ignoring that those theories deal with process and not actor. And you're abandoning the true meaning of "theory" in your attempt at religion-bashing.
All you have is faith, and faith alone is not a scientifically valid argument.
In science these are called "assumptions". Belief in things unseen. Nobody was around to measure the rate of radioactive decay 10,000 years ago, yet the assumption is that it was the same as what is measured today. From this faith comes the age of the Earth. Assumptions are all around us in science, yet few seem to understand (or just admit) their significance.
In high school, I was fascinated by geometry. Five assumptions lead to all of Euclidian geometry. But what if one or more of those assumptions are wrong? Lobachevsky was someone who questioned the assumptions about parallel lines. Now, in our local bit of space (which has been expanding over time) Euclid seems to be right. The universe is a large place. He's not "obviously right" (nor Lobachevsky "obviously wrong") when you consider the size of the problem. Just as Newton wasn't "obviously wrong" about classical physics, nor is what we now know is "obviously wrong" useless.
To be absolutely certain of your claim yes (but then why would you need estimates?)
No. Accuracy does not mean you are absolutely certain of your numbers. It mean
And demanding that people 'act professionally' is demanding that they shut up and do what they're told, because that's what 'acting professionally' means.
No, apparently, acting professionally means not wearing a bathrobe when you work in your home office.
In reality, acting professionally means not being insulting and abusive and treating people like crap because they have an idea you don't like or because they made a mistake. It has nothing to do with how you dress in the privacy of your own home or not being able to tell someone they made a mistake or you don't like their ideas.
You need to have the skin of a thousand rhino and the determination of the super-est of all supermen to push your idea across the many seasoned, and equally thick-skinned developers.
So having a good idea well developed and code that is written cleanly and clearly isn't important, it is more important to be able to browbeat others into liking it.
The so-called "abusive languages" is but a mechanism to weed out ideas which are not fully thought-over.
And here I thought that a clear and concise technical discussion would be a way to weed out ideas that are not fully thought-over. Or simply saying "your idea is not fully developed and it will not appear in the kernel." Who knew that the only way to do that was to be verbally abusive and insulting?
I think it speaks volumes that the concept of "acting professionally" seems to mean only not wearing a bathrobe when in private to some. I think the phrase "unclear on the concept" was developed for people like that.
If you can't stand the heat, dear Sir, I suggest you to get out of the kitchen.
It's interesting you use a kitchen analogy in this discussion. For several years I've been watching Gordon Ramsay in his various rant-prone self-promotional programs. For the last couple of months I've been watching MasterChef on BBC America with Michel Rue. The difference is that Gordon Ramsay is a foul-mouthed abusive fellow who can do nothing but yell and insult the people competing in his programs when they make the tiniest mistake, and Michel Rue's harshest comment has been along the lines of "that needed more seasoning" or "that was too pink for my taste". When Ramsay's folks bring him poorly produced food he throws pans and pots; Rue wrinkles his nose a bit and says "that wasn't your best work". The other difference is that Ramsay's contestants produce zero-star pablum and Rue gets one-star creative performances from his. It seems one feels the need to express his superiority at every chance, the other wishes to develop talents in others. They are both good at achieving their goals. I'll leave it to the reader to guess which goal I think is more worthy.
Ahh. the salt peter myth.
whoosh.
There are nitrates in lunch meats, but if lunch meat causes a false-positive then your kit isn't really worth much.
Only if you rub lunch meat all over yourself on a regular basis, which might be a side effect of the CIA use of nitrates in the koolaid.
And "God did it" is still a reasonable (if unlikely) reason for the Big Bang happening in the first place.
Apples and oranges. Who (or what) is responsible isn't the same thing as "via what mechanism".
The absolutely best they can claim is that the devil
Most creationists don't believe that the devil was responsible for creation.
or maybe God himself, to "test" us -- ie: make sure we don't try to use the big old brains He gave us
Perhaps God did it to give us all something to do with our "big old brains" while we're here on this planet? Most people who "do science" seem to enjoy it. Figuring out how something was done is still interesting, even if you leave out the question of who did it. Why does it matter if "God did it" or "it happened from a random chance accident of random molecules" when one is studying how DNA works?
accuracy within 1% is a reasonable accuracy in many cases
Claims of accuracy require a known correct value. It is precision that deals with repeatability and consistency between numbers of unknown accuracy.
If you seek across the world wild web, you'll find places that give the age of the universe ranging from 16+-5, 12.0+-1.5, 13.7+-0.2, and 9-11 GYears. Over the last few hundred years of that process, scientists have told us that the Earth is 2 GY, between 20 and 400 MY, 22MY, 200 MY, 56 MY, 50-150 MY. Radiometric dating has given answers from 1.3 GY to 3.8 GY. And now, with dedicated certainty, 4.54 GY, ref here.
I don't see anyone having their "big old brains" limited by anything, in fact, lots of "big old brains" have been having a lot of fun working on this. And there is nothing inherent in the statement "God did it" that stops people from being scientists and seeking knowledge.
Yep, and it serves the same purpose as telling people their sins are forgiven by the mighty God once they die. So they keep sinning until they die.
Which religion tells people this? None I know of.
but seriously we don't blame the heroine or meth for a junkie becoming a junkie.
We do, however, blame the guy standing on the street corner handing out free samples of dope trying to get people hooked.
I blame them for being less perfect than I am, just like this dude is.
FTFY. Humans are an imperfect animal with build in chemical and psychological pathways that can lead to dependency on many different kinds of things. Some people have had enough support early in their lives that they haven't made bad decisions that lead them down the bad pathways; some people haven't. That doesn't make the person pathetic or weak or even simple, it just makes him human.
We tested our hands, HESCO barriers, lunch meat, hmmwv windows... everything tested positive.
Hmm, everything you mentioned but one is something is in a combat environment where roadside explosives are not uncommon, and where weapons are fired on a regular basis. Sounds like detecting explosives on such items would be normal.
But lunch meat? Well, once you remember that many explosives are nitro-compounds (nitrate, etc.) and lunch meat contains nitrates as preservatives ... and that the CIA is putting nitrates in your koolaid to keep your, shall we say, libidos, from running amok...