Even undersea fiber optic cables can be eavesdropped. So can wired Ethernet (802.11 -- a.k.a. Wi-Fi -- is simply Wireless Ethernet).
This wallpaper, for ordinary people, is profoundly useless, unless of course they are prepared to cover the windows and window- and dorr frames, floors and ceilings, and install air-tight air-lock chambers for every entryway. It sounds perfect for those glass-box rooms repleat with auto-frosting glass for embassy officials and international counterespionage groups.
And for those simply looking to avoid the very minor amount of energy emitted by these radios, i suggest you get rid of your: cordless phones, cell phones, television sets -- and move to a place where there's no television, cable TV, FM radio, complete absence of ambient satellite signals, any sort of radiomagnetic emmisions from the entire universe, etc. You do more damage to yourself looking into the microwave oven to see how well along your popcorn is than you would jamming a transmitting Wi-Fi radio up your...oh never mind, you get the picture.
Then again, I suppose this is a good idea if your trying to have your house invisible to radar tracking systems too.
I wonder how long it will be before this stuff will be available as invisible bra material for my car...now there's an invention I could use.
In 1999, even the priciest cards were about half this amount. The installation costs are the real issue though, if they were paid. Clealry, they were not installed. Even the article phrased it as "supposed installation costs".
that amounts to $324 per wireless card. In these quantities, they should run about $40 even for latest-and-greatest super b/g cards.
I think that the never leaving the loading dock issue is the smallest issue here. the price should tell you that actually shipping these cards was probably irrelevant from the beginning.
wonder how much they spent on the access points...
The only 100% IE standards-noncompliant page your site should host is the page denouncing Microsoft's 'adopt-and-extend' euphemism for the market manipulation it is, with links to mozilla.org Firefox downloader.
It would probably help, too, if you put some really cool decoy links that look ganked in IE and then put up a disclaimer, "If this page looks whacky it's because you are using the world's worst browser, IE." Then redirect to the Firefox download page.
Reminding them that IE is also spyware and a virus magnet wouldn't hurt either. You could add an rapidly-incrementing visual counter that marks the time saved and internet bandwidth saved by Firefox users not having to download the current batch of IE security patches.
"A criminologist is a social scientist who deals with the motivations and social contexts of crimes. You are thinking of "criminalists", or "forensic DNA examiners", who are the people who do crime lab work."
No, I wasn't thinking any such thing. I actually did some quick research before posting and several criminiologists felt the tests were to be used as additional data points in an investigation, not as primary source to identify 'the bad guy.' A criminalist would be to prone to bias to be trustworthy (like asking a traffic cop if his radar gun is fallible...)
"They don't do PCR at all on the samples they use to populate the database; there's plenty of sample, and amplifying it would simply introduce errors."
Exactly. But they do PCR the crime scene samples, and for the purposes of this discussion what is relevant is the existence errors in the process.
"Why guess when you can look it up in the literature?"
Why imply what is in the literature when you can state your source directly? If you have a source (not statisical, but true empirical study) about how often DNA sequences repeat with in close communities and families, then just come out and say it. Don't confer to yourself superiority, then say nothing of substance. I cited what I beleive to be an obvious matter: DNA samples in close-knit communities do not vary as widely as general statistics would have you believe. An obvious example would be siblings, other close familiy relatives, closed societies (such as the Quakers in NE USA), and so on.
Furthermore:
- As for saliva at a crime scene, I suppose your assertion would be relevant if, and only if, the criminal's 'droppings' would be present to an exclusion of all others, and it was axiomatic that the true criminal could not have prevented their's from being left at the scene;
- You mention in your post that fingerprinting is time consuming and error-prone, but you're not sure anymore. Assuming you just didn't have time to consult the literature before you spouted off, and assuming that DNA searches are instant, you yourself, after presumably having consulted the literature said that PCR introduces errors, and thus the process is error prone. Outside of being faster and more expensive way to misidentify someone, I'm not sure the advantage offered by DNA over fingerprinting;
- I am not convinced that DNA is more 'studied' than fingerprinting. You'll have to make some solid references here, or it just sounds like you're trying to impute intellectual superiority to your argument with actually having reasonable grounds (a recurring issue in your post).
Now, clearly I do not support these superscientific approaches because they end up conveying infallibility wheras they are quite
fallible. And, no I am not an expert here, nor have I read all theliterature, but that is a far cry from "spouting off" and not having read anything. I did read some literature, and the fact that you misinterpreted what I wrote (or more accurately, put words in my mouth) doesn't mean that you are more credible. But it does mean that you are rather immodest.
No, as for the misuse of the data, these types of legislations are always the thin end of a wedge. Once in place, the common folk won't know one metod from another, nor will they care, as long as politicians keep telling them that what they are doing is completely necessary to keep the streets safe. That's how people get vicimized by laws, thinking that all laws are moral and are only used in moral ways. I think that such a thing is really quite rare, on either count.
DNA sequencing is usually done on sequence fragments and not the entire genome. Therefore it's not as unique as one might be led to believe. Most criminologists (with a moral conscience) know this and many feel that this a useful tool to rule someone out, but it is not reliable enough to single someone out. Take the case of identical twins: identical genomes; you would have to rely on fingerprints.
And the potential for abuse is just too huge a risk. And since fingerprints can distinguish beteen identical twins, it should be obvious even to the casual observer that physical uniqueness is determined by more than the entire DNA sequence. Moreover, we already have fingerprinting, so what's the need for DNA? My guess is that the other uses of DNA are too compelling, such as letting insurance companies determine your premiums against worst-case risks, while simultaneously disqualifying coverage for diseases you likely would contract.
I read somewhere (can't find the reference ATM) that the portion of DNA that is PCR'd for identification purposes repeats about 1:400. My guess that in some rural communities and suburban or urban ghettos it might even be more frequently repeated in the sample population.
I am left to wonder how much money this politician, his relatives, heirs, assigns, financial backers, etc., have invested in DNA fingerprinting companies and databasing companies...
Your approach may be just a little to simplistic, unless your still in fourth grade. You probably think that everybody lives life like you do, and that you've thought of everything. "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" attitude. I am sure that this isn't the only despotic opinion you hold; in fact, people like you are dangerous to society.
Do you think that only 'end-users' send spam, and never 'business users'? Do you think that spammers can't change the config file in their cable modems? Your 'solution' is not even worthy of consideration; it's a childish response to a complex problem and shows zero insight. No wonder you posted anonymously, you coward.
I absolutely did not change the premise of the conversation. Dykofone commented that it was a great idea because someone other than common folk pays for government largesse ('in Texas this stuff gets paid paid for by rich oil landowners'). I pointed out that one of the greatest economists of all time pointed out that wealth redistribution ("legal pluder" in his own words) was the essence of the State, and that its popular support is derived by sharing the booty with the masses (everbody loves something for nothing). I quoted Basiat: "The State is that great fiction by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else." And that's all I wrote. Never did I make an argument about State-run excess. You're just dead wrong.
Then you made the comment, "The only expense to the taxpayer is whatever administrative time is required to run the bid and selection process." I responded by suggesting that this might be a tad naiive. This operator, no matter how private, will have to be contiually 'administered' and 'governed' to assure compliance. That requires funding; the State does not create wealth; it simply spends other people's money. That's just a fact; get over it. Transmogrifying it into some noble overture for the poor and downtroidden is simply fairytale fantasy that helps soothe the consciences of those that benefit from other people's money.
After a full review of the posts leading to this one, it is quite clear that you have confused my posts with those of others. So the only errors being made here, and the only unreasonable attacks leveled here, are coming from you, madam.
I suspect that you are a beneficiary of this or other Government plunder. It's pure "Robin Hood": taking from the rich oil landownwers, or the wireless company, or whomever, and giving the proceeds -- goods, services, cash, whatever -- to someone else. And, getting some administrative fees for themselves in the process. Making plain how the world works is neither an opinion nor a statement for or against; it is simply a statement of fact."
You have brought what appears to be a metric tomn of baggage to this thread. Your socialist tone clearly suggests that you are a primary beneficiary of government largess. You're either a direct employee, or and indirect employee, feeding off the governmet teet: a lawyer, a teacher, a researcher, a think-tanker, a defense contractor, a road builder, lobbyist, sidewalk eyesore artist, [substitute your government funded program here], whatever. But you are out-of-balance with your own diatribe that you don't even know who you are responding to.
The only expense to the taxpayer is whatever administrative time is required to run the bid and selection process.
Like any viable organism, a bureaucracy must learn to feed itself, and then continue to do so or die. Bureaucracies eat money, taking from the rich and giving to the poor, so as to always be assured of a majority support. Then they extract a wealth redistribution fee (trasnlation: get well paid for the effort). It's also why government jobs, even menial ones, pay so highly and employ a majority (I read somewhere that 60% or so of America's jobs are directly for the various branches of the US federal, state and local governments).
If they did not do this, there would be no such thing as a government "career". Therefore, there MUST of necessity be costs to police the operator, care for the site, find a new operator if the old one is gotten rid of (or needs replacing), etc. Otherwise TxDOT paid jobs would become extinct.
That's what the Nazis said. The SS were famous for saying, "If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. And we know exactly what you have done."
In the US there are hundreds of thousands of pages of federal laws alone, never mind all the ordinaces, many thousands of Executive orders, plus who-knows-how-many State and local ordinances, covenants, laws, and whatnot. And they don't all agree. There is always something a person is doing wrong, as any zealous prosecutor knows. Only a fool thinks that he is doing nothing of interest to the government. Only a fool thinks he knows what is of interest to the government. In fact it is implicit in general monitoring that everything everyone does, no matter how insignificant it seems to the average person is of great interest to the Government, otherwise they wouldn't monitor anything. Do you think that you are aware of every change in government motive, every secret initiative by the security forces, every effort to control the economy, personal liberty, so that you know you won't be identified as a subversive? Do even have the faintest clue that the concept of "liberty" has been redefined by Executive Order three times in the last 40 years?!? That's correct, by Presidential Decree, not by Congress, but just as enforcable.
History is littered with innocent people getting railroaded by "facts" assembled in a way that shows guilt falsely.
Only someone that will do anything a government tells them to do is unconcerned with being monitored by a government. Such people are the truly scary ones in my book. (See Stanley Milgram's experiments on what people will do, if simply asked. And the Stanford Prison Experiment too.)
Perhaps the best evidence that you are being insincere is that you posted as an Anonymous Coward. Got something to hide, O Paragon of Innocence? Or are you really just a true coward at heart?
Privacy is already gone. Long gone. Spy cams at every street corner intersection, core routers saving packet traffic to mass storage systems, credit card trails, spending habits, web surfing habits...probably even search key habits. Automatic face/feature recognition systems that instantly cross reference your freshly captured mugshot and display your dossier in near real-time.
Satellites that can see your infrared image as you flee persecution. Cops that dress in military-style uniforms. Our local gendarmes look like a cross between US Marines and Batman: Jarheads with batbelts. And they're so on-edge that every "violater" doing 5 over the limit is for-sure cop killer (in their own heads), that they're ready to blow your head off in an atomic instant, one hand perched on their holster. By the time she gets to your car, her partner behind you maintaining a clear shot to the back of your head, she herself circling you like a mongoose approaching a snake, only to shine a 500 watt halogen flashlight in your eyes, then complain that you can't find your wallet (the light burned your retinas, but it's your own stupid fault for speeding). And they know, based on a quick "background" check, that your ATM card placed you at a convenience store in the last half hour and *know* that the address on your license is wrong even before they see it (the latter actually happened to me, but then again I was going 10 over).
Building-penetrating radar imaging. Cell phone tracking and triangulation. It goes on and on. The irony is that it's paid for by tax dollars and rammed-through legislation because of sensationalistic reporting like this Kobe thing.
It's not just the USA. I read somewhere the average Londoner gets photographed 300 times a day. Look out Australia, Canada, and every other place that thinks, "it can't happen here!" It probably already has.
It's merely a symptom of a much more significant syndrome: "Anguish of nations not knowing the way out..."
Kurst would be legally responsible for the death of his wife
If he was the guy responsible for the rat poison in the first place. If she croaked because of ingested rat poison becasue she was picking her teeth after getting the stuff all over her, how could he be responsible? Only if he were negligent and not excercising reasonable care.
All these anti-terrorist initiatives use fear and promise of security to circumvent protections against persecution by the government. That's why it smacks of conspiracy every time these tactics are employed, because it quite possibly could be persecution. Of course the case itself could be a sideshow: the government knows most people are superficial morons that just want to voice their opinion about things they know nothing about over headlines they don't even care were planted, then be left alone to continue consuming. William Randolph Hearst comes to mind: Remember the Maine.
This man could be getting pulled through a wringer simply to send a message that anyone except the government is simply not permitted to fool with bacteria -- or anything else for that matter -- on purpose. If someone needs to be killed, or if nature is to be manipulated, the govenment will handle it, thank you very much. The government is in unilateral control of life and death and it demands profound submission on this subject. Just like railroading innocent people over fair-use recording and format shifting of licensed video and audio materials, and fair-use forensic analyses to understand how things work (reverse engineering for academic purposes). It's okay if your a corporation (nobody is raiding Micro$oft where they no doubt reverse everything -- like video game boxes and whatnot. The former is about complete social domination and the later is about economic enslavement, IMHO.
Even the densest people know at some level that they get the best deal from government when they go along to get along. This poor guy -- or maybe this sinister madman, who knows? -- is for sure being made an example of, whether guilty or not. His "crime" is, in my view, merely an excuse to make an entirely different [subliminal] point.
Next thing you know cops will pull you over just to scan through your iPod's storehouse looking for pirated music. No doubt someone will die choking on the iPod he frantically tried to swallow...
Patents can also be deemed obvious if they were anticipated by prior art. In this case double clicking a computing device to make a selection has been long done and is public domain. The size of the computer is an aside. The fact that the device has limited resources is also an aside. One double-clicks with a mouse specifically because it has limited input resources. It is irrelevant that a keyboard could also be used in a PC application, because the same is true with most PDA's. If I made a really really small PC, could I patent the "Enter" key? How about the "shift " or "control" keys? Since they are function modifiers, they expand the limited resources in binary progression: so all have to do is make size of the box an issue and it's innovate? Clearly this patent was allowed because of who filed, not what was filed.
It's easy. Just make the prior art available on a website somewhere, with verifiable dates. Use it, one-by-one, to demonstrate that their solutions were obvious to one skilled in the art at or before the time they filed, right down the claims list. Once the information is public they won't ever try to enforce it, because patents -- invalid or not -- are considered valuable assets, particularly if the company has the financial resources to fund a lawsuit to enforce. So they'll prefer to simply let sleeping dogs lie. And if they do try to enforce it, the defense will be straightforward an inexpensive.
IANApatentL but I believe that patents only prevent others from commercializing a claimed invention. OSS is not a commercialization per se. It is simply a public disclosure of a particular method. Patents too are a public disclosure of particular solutions. But it would be hard to prove [to me, anyway] that a patent assignee would be damaged by publicly telling others something they had already publicly disclosed themselves.
As far as I am aware, time-limited monopolies are permitted in exchange for the disclosure. It it completely legal and non-actionable, as far as I understand the law, to use the disclosure for personal non-profit use. So, for an anti-spam filter, it would be hard to argue that anyone, even businesses would be using such a system for profit. I would argue that it is a necessity under law to prevent things in the workplace that harass or oppress or [truly] offend, which a lot of spam does. So, rather than for profit it is a legal necessity (in many countries, certainly in the jurisdictions that would be asked to enforce this patent).
Complaining that the world is unfair -- a fact known to most adults -- is profoundly useless.
See how inept the USPS is? Within one day of the DHL man? Some shop steward obviously dropped the ball. There are checks and balances in place to prevent this sort of thing. How are all the shareholders in DHL going to feel now? All those customs officials that rake in bazzillions charging duty on items deemed time-sensitive? Clearly something is wrong.
I don't use Windows (except for some engineeering apps that only run in Windows and the occasional PowerPunt file). Windows doesn't come with any hardware, neither does any other OS. Apple is a bundled, blister-packed harware/software solution designed with a specific intellect in mind. Thus, it is ultra-simple. And bully for them, I can't say they underestimated their market one bit. I prefer selecting all my own hardware and software and then tailoring it to my needs. Some people just want "internet in a box". or "graphics arts in a box".
I think we all know gravity exists. There are several theories on how it works -- e.g., is it a pulling or a pushing force -- but most do people stipulate to its existence. In fact, silly, heavy boots prove gravity exists.
Gravity can be stipulated to because things have weight. Evolution cannot be stipulated to because tangible evidence of neither panspermia nor of abiogenesis have been demonstrated, nor has the demonstatrating of changing one species into another [viable] species been demonstrated either.
So, genetic algorithms...are you saying they came into existence and got programmed onto computers all by themselves? What about the computer itself, some output of abiogenetic process?
Clearly, they did not. Which is exactly the point.
"And yet you seem prepared to accept the existence of a god without requiring an explanation for it. How does that work?"
megalomania: 2 : a delusional mental disorder that is marked by infantile feelings of personal omnipotence and grandeur
It takes a certain amount of humility to accept that something that is intelligent enough to create the physical universe is also beyond our comprehension. A computer is built by someone, and its 'genetic algorithms' are also built buy someone. It doesn't know that though. Does that mean its maker doesn't exist?
It is the pinnacle of arrogance to think that mankind can know everything. We automatically know that there are some among us that can possess knowledge and wisdom in excess of another, and even that we are imperfect and incapable of knowing everything, but somehow if we can't know everything about God then he cannot exist. If God cannot be reduced to some concept a blithering idiot can comprehend in all aspects, then he's a figment of the imagination of idiots. It is profoundly illogical to know we cannot know everything and then disregard concepts that acknowledge that we can't know everything.
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This wallpaper, for ordinary people, is profoundly useless, unless of course they are prepared to cover the windows and window- and dorr frames, floors and ceilings, and install air-tight air-lock chambers for every entryway. It sounds perfect for those glass-box rooms repleat with auto-frosting glass for embassy officials and international counterespionage groups.
And for those simply looking to avoid the very minor amount of energy emitted by these radios, i suggest you get rid of your: cordless phones, cell phones, television sets -- and move to a place where there's no television, cable TV, FM radio, complete absence of ambient satellite signals, any sort of radiomagnetic emmisions from the entire universe, etc. You do more damage to yourself looking into the microwave oven to see how well along your popcorn is than you would jamming a transmitting Wi-Fi radio up your...oh never mind, you get the picture.
Then again, I suppose this is a good idea if your trying to have your house invisible to radar tracking systems too.
I wonder how long it will be before this stuff will be available as invisible bra material for my car...now there's an invention I could use.
In 1999, even the priciest cards were about half this amount. The installation costs are the real issue though, if they were paid. Clealry, they were not installed. Even the article phrased it as "supposed installation costs".
I think that the never leaving the loading dock issue is the smallest issue here. the price should tell you that actually shipping these cards was probably irrelevant from the beginning.
wonder how much they spent on the access points...
It would probably help, too, if you put some really cool decoy links that look ganked in IE and then put up a disclaimer, "If this page looks whacky it's because you are using the world's worst browser, IE." Then redirect to the Firefox download page.
Reminding them that IE is also spyware and a virus magnet wouldn't hurt either. You could add an rapidly-incrementing visual counter that marks the time saved and internet bandwidth saved by Firefox users not having to download the current batch of IE security patches.
No, I wasn't thinking any such thing. I actually did some quick research before posting and several criminiologists felt the tests were to be used as additional data points in an investigation, not as primary source to identify 'the bad guy.' A criminalist would be to prone to bias to be trustworthy (like asking a traffic cop if his radar gun is fallible...)
"They don't do PCR at all on the samples they use to populate the database; there's plenty of sample, and amplifying it would simply introduce errors."
Exactly. But they do PCR the crime scene samples, and for the purposes of this discussion what is relevant is the existence errors in the process.
"Why guess when you can look it up in the literature?"
Why imply what is in the literature when you can state your source directly? If you have a source (not statisical, but true empirical study) about how often DNA sequences repeat with in close communities and families, then just come out and say it. Don't confer to yourself superiority, then say nothing of substance. I cited what I beleive to be an obvious matter: DNA samples in close-knit communities do not vary as widely as general statistics would have you believe. An obvious example would be siblings, other close familiy relatives, closed societies (such as the Quakers in NE USA), and so on.
Furthermore:
- As for saliva at a crime scene, I suppose your assertion would be relevant if, and only if, the criminal's 'droppings' would be present to an exclusion of all others, and it was axiomatic that the true criminal could not have prevented their's from being left at the scene;
- You mention in your post that fingerprinting is time consuming and error-prone, but you're not sure anymore. Assuming you just didn't have time to consult the literature before you spouted off, and assuming that DNA searches are instant, you yourself, after presumably having consulted the literature said that PCR introduces errors, and thus the process is error prone. Outside of being faster and more expensive way to misidentify someone, I'm not sure the advantage offered by DNA over fingerprinting;
- I am not convinced that DNA is more 'studied' than fingerprinting. You'll have to make some solid references here, or it just sounds like you're trying to impute intellectual superiority to your argument with actually having reasonable grounds (a recurring issue in your post).
Now, clearly I do not support these superscientific approaches because they end up conveying infallibility wheras they are quite fallible. And, no I am not an expert here, nor have I read all theliterature, but that is a far cry from "spouting off" and not having read anything. I did read some literature, and the fact that you misinterpreted what I wrote (or more accurately, put words in my mouth) doesn't mean that you are more credible. But it does mean that you are rather immodest.
No, as for the misuse of the data, these types of legislations are always the thin end of a wedge. Once in place, the common folk won't know one metod from another, nor will they care, as long as politicians keep telling them that what they are doing is completely necessary to keep the streets safe. That's how people get vicimized by laws, thinking that all laws are moral and are only used in moral ways. I think that such a thing is really quite rare, on either count.
And the potential for abuse is just too huge a risk. And since fingerprints can distinguish beteen identical twins, it should be obvious even to the casual observer that physical uniqueness is determined by more than the entire DNA sequence. Moreover, we already have fingerprinting, so what's the need for DNA? My guess is that the other uses of DNA are too compelling, such as letting insurance companies determine your premiums against worst-case risks, while simultaneously disqualifying coverage for diseases you likely would contract.
I read somewhere (can't find the reference ATM) that the portion of DNA that is PCR'd for identification purposes repeats about 1:400. My guess that in some rural communities and suburban or urban ghettos it might even be more frequently repeated in the sample population.
I am left to wonder how much money this politician, his relatives, heirs, assigns, financial backers, etc., have invested in DNA fingerprinting companies and databasing companies...
Do you think that only 'end-users' send spam, and never 'business users'? Do you think that spammers can't change the config file in their cable modems? Your 'solution' is not even worthy of consideration; it's a childish response to a complex problem and shows zero insight. No wonder you posted anonymously, you coward.
Then you made the comment, "The only expense to the taxpayer is whatever administrative time is required to run the bid and selection process." I responded by suggesting that this might be a tad naiive. This operator, no matter how private, will have to be contiually 'administered' and 'governed' to assure compliance. That requires funding; the State does not create wealth; it simply spends other people's money. That's just a fact; get over it. Transmogrifying it into some noble overture for the poor and downtroidden is simply fairytale fantasy that helps soothe the consciences of those that benefit from other people's money.
After a full review of the posts leading to this one, it is quite clear that you have confused my posts with those of others. So the only errors being made here, and the only unreasonable attacks leveled here, are coming from you, madam.
I suspect that you are a beneficiary of this or other Government plunder. It's pure "Robin Hood": taking from the rich oil landownwers, or the wireless company, or whomever, and giving the proceeds -- goods, services, cash, whatever -- to someone else. And, getting some administrative fees for themselves in the process. Making plain how the world works is neither an opinion nor a statement for or against; it is simply a statement of fact." You have brought what appears to be a metric tomn of baggage to this thread. Your socialist tone clearly suggests that you are a primary beneficiary of government largess. You're either a direct employee, or and indirect employee, feeding off the governmet teet: a lawyer, a teacher, a researcher, a think-tanker, a defense contractor, a road builder, lobbyist, sidewalk eyesore artist, [substitute your government funded program here], whatever. But you are out-of-balance with your own diatribe that you don't even know who you are responding to.
Nothing could have made my point better!
Like any viable organism, a bureaucracy must learn to feed itself, and then continue to do so or die. Bureaucracies eat money, taking from the rich and giving to the poor, so as to always be assured of a majority support. Then they extract a wealth redistribution fee (trasnlation: get well paid for the effort). It's also why government jobs, even menial ones, pay so highly and employ a majority (I read somewhere that 60% or so of America's jobs are directly for the various branches of the US federal, state and local governments).
If they did not do this, there would be no such thing as a government "career". Therefore, there MUST of necessity be costs to police the operator, care for the site, find a new operator if the old one is gotten rid of (or needs replacing), etc. Otherwise TxDOT paid jobs would become extinct.
"The State is that great fiction by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else."
-- Frederic Bastiat
In the US there are hundreds of thousands of pages of federal laws alone, never mind all the ordinaces, many thousands of Executive orders, plus who-knows-how-many State and local ordinances, covenants, laws, and whatnot. And they don't all agree. There is always something a person is doing wrong, as any zealous prosecutor knows. Only a fool thinks that he is doing nothing of interest to the government. Only a fool thinks he knows what is of interest to the government. In fact it is implicit in general monitoring that everything everyone does, no matter how insignificant it seems to the average person is of great interest to the Government, otherwise they wouldn't monitor anything. Do you think that you are aware of every change in government motive, every secret initiative by the security forces, every effort to control the economy, personal liberty, so that you know you won't be identified as a subversive? Do even have the faintest clue that the concept of "liberty" has been redefined by Executive Order three times in the last 40 years?!? That's correct, by Presidential Decree, not by Congress, but just as enforcable.
History is littered with innocent people getting railroaded by "facts" assembled in a way that shows guilt falsely.
Only someone that will do anything a government tells them to do is unconcerned with being monitored by a government. Such people are the truly scary ones in my book. (See Stanley Milgram's experiments on what people will do, if simply asked. And the Stanford Prison Experiment too.)
Perhaps the best evidence that you are being insincere is that you posted as an Anonymous Coward. Got something to hide, O Paragon of Innocence? Or are you really just a true coward at heart?
Satellites that can see your infrared image as you flee persecution. Cops that dress in military-style uniforms. Our local gendarmes look like a cross between US Marines and Batman: Jarheads with batbelts. And they're so on-edge that every "violater" doing 5 over the limit is for-sure cop killer (in their own heads), that they're ready to blow your head off in an atomic instant, one hand perched on their holster. By the time she gets to your car, her partner behind you maintaining a clear shot to the back of your head, she herself circling you like a mongoose approaching a snake, only to shine a 500 watt halogen flashlight in your eyes, then complain that you can't find your wallet (the light burned your retinas, but it's your own stupid fault for speeding). And they know, based on a quick "background" check, that your ATM card placed you at a convenience store in the last half hour and *know* that the address on your license is wrong even before they see it (the latter actually happened to me, but then again I was going 10 over).
Building-penetrating radar imaging. Cell phone tracking and triangulation. It goes on and on. The irony is that it's paid for by tax dollars and rammed-through legislation because of sensationalistic reporting like this Kobe thing.
It's not just the USA. I read somewhere the average Londoner gets photographed 300 times a day. Look out Australia, Canada, and every other place that thinks, "it can't happen here!" It probably already has.
It's merely a symptom of a much more significant syndrome: "Anguish of nations not knowing the way out..."
If he was the guy responsible for the rat poison in the first place. If she croaked because of ingested rat poison becasue she was picking her teeth after getting the stuff all over her, how could he be responsible? Only if he were negligent and not excercising reasonable care.
All these anti-terrorist initiatives use fear and promise of security to circumvent protections against persecution by the government. That's why it smacks of conspiracy every time these tactics are employed, because it quite possibly could be persecution. Of course the case itself could be a sideshow: the government knows most people are superficial morons that just want to voice their opinion about things they know nothing about over headlines they don't even care were planted, then be left alone to continue consuming. William Randolph Hearst comes to mind: Remember the Maine.
This man could be getting pulled through a wringer simply to send a message that anyone except the government is simply not permitted to fool with bacteria -- or anything else for that matter -- on purpose. If someone needs to be killed, or if nature is to be manipulated, the govenment will handle it, thank you very much. The government is in unilateral control of life and death and it demands profound submission on this subject. Just like railroading innocent people over fair-use recording and format shifting of licensed video and audio materials, and fair-use forensic analyses to understand how things work (reverse engineering for academic purposes). It's okay if your a corporation (nobody is raiding Micro$oft where they no doubt reverse everything -- like video game boxes and whatnot. The former is about complete social domination and the later is about economic enslavement, IMHO.
Even the densest people know at some level that they get the best deal from government when they go along to get along. This poor guy -- or maybe this sinister madman, who knows? -- is for sure being made an example of, whether guilty or not. His "crime" is, in my view, merely an excuse to make an entirely different [subliminal] point.
Next thing you know cops will pull you over just to scan through your iPod's storehouse looking for pirated music. No doubt someone will die choking on the iPod he frantically tried to swallow...
I guess size really does matter after all.
IANApatentL but I believe that patents only prevent others from commercializing a claimed invention. OSS is not a commercialization per se. It is simply a public disclosure of a particular method. Patents too are a public disclosure of particular solutions. But it would be hard to prove [to me, anyway] that a patent assignee would be damaged by publicly telling others something they had already publicly disclosed themselves.
As far as I am aware, time-limited monopolies are permitted in exchange for the disclosure. It it completely legal and non-actionable, as far as I understand the law, to use the disclosure for personal non-profit use. So, for an anti-spam filter, it would be hard to argue that anyone, even businesses would be using such a system for profit. I would argue that it is a necessity under law to prevent things in the workplace that harass or oppress or [truly] offend, which a lot of spam does. So, rather than for profit it is a legal necessity (in many countries, certainly in the jurisdictions that would be asked to enforce this patent).
Complaining that the world is unfair -- a fact known to most adults -- is profoundly useless.
See how inept the USPS is? Within one day of the DHL man? Some shop steward obviously dropped the ball. There are checks and balances in place to prevent this sort of thing. How are all the shareholders in DHL going to feel now? All those customs officials that rake in bazzillions charging duty on items deemed time-sensitive? Clearly something is wrong.
I don't use Windows (except for some engineeering apps that only run in Windows and the occasional PowerPunt file). Windows doesn't come with any hardware, neither does any other OS. Apple is a bundled, blister-packed harware/software solution designed with a specific intellect in mind. Thus, it is ultra-simple. And bully for them, I can't say they underestimated their market one bit. I prefer selecting all my own hardware and software and then tailoring it to my needs. Some people just want "internet in a box". or "graphics arts in a box".
No wonder they restrict you to one mouse button ;-)
'The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know.' -H. Truman (?)
'There's a sucker born every minute, and two to take...'
aaahhhh...never mind...you get the idea...
Gravity can be stipulated to because things have weight. Evolution cannot be stipulated to because tangible evidence of neither panspermia nor of abiogenesis have been demonstrated, nor has the demonstatrating of changing one species into another [viable] species been demonstrated either.
Clearly, they did not. Which is exactly the point.
megalomania: 2 : a delusional mental disorder that is marked by infantile feelings of personal omnipotence and grandeur
It takes a certain amount of humility to accept that something that is intelligent enough to create the physical universe is also beyond our comprehension. A computer is built by someone, and its 'genetic algorithms' are also built buy someone. It doesn't know that though. Does that mean its maker doesn't exist?
It is the pinnacle of arrogance to think that mankind can know everything. We automatically know that there are some among us that can possess knowledge and wisdom in excess of another, and even that we are imperfect and incapable of knowing everything, but somehow if we can't know everything about God then he cannot exist. If God cannot be reduced to some concept a blithering idiot can comprehend in all aspects, then he's a figment of the imagination of idiots. It is profoundly illogical to know we cannot know everything and then disregard concepts that acknowledge that we can't know everything.
See, this is what I mean. Random breeding, according to the theories, is anti-evolutionary. People don't even know what they believe.