The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) is a right-leaning 501(c)(3) non-profit group that monitors and reports on the ethics of public officials, supporters of liberal causes, and labor unions in the United States.
This actually isn't true for all jurisdictions, so depending on what state you are in, you might wind up with criminal charges. Certain states (for example, New York) impose a duty to retreat upon parties in danger. That is to say, if you are being attacked, you have a duty to retreat to a safe place. Only when you no longer can retreat (i.e., you are either cornered or you are in your home) can you resort to self defense.
How about, gee, I dunno, profiling passengers? You know, be politically incorrect and actually practice forensic science for a change, and stop harassing and inconveniencing the rest of us?
This would work up until the point terrorists realize they should recruit suicide bombers who don't fit the profile of a terrorist. Actually, indications are that they've already started to do so.
Of course, the TSA can make airplanes more secure by simply expanding the profile to all humans in general. Then you'll have absolute security - sure it's useless, but it'll be secure.
I hate this constant need for science journalists to oversell and over-hype an outstanding achievement with misleading hyperbole. They didn't create mini big bangs. They smashed lead ions to try to recreate the conditions that existed shortly after the big bang. It's already an impressive enough achievement without cheapening it with sensationalist BS.
Ouch! I'm sorry about your friend's situation. I've often found that mice are pretty good for mitigating clumsy hands. For example, when I do really really detailed graphical work in GIMP, I often zoom down to really high levels and work on it a little bit at a time, which gives you a lot of leeway and control. Plus, a lot of programs have ways of mitigating shaky or clumsy hands - bezier tools, for instance, are a godsend to a guy like me whose hands shake constantly (probably due to the 3 Monster drinks I just had).
As far as 3D stuff goes, does your friend know about Sculptris? It's a simple 3D sculpting tool that is able to export to Zbrush (and in fact was just purchased by Zbrush's parent company, Pixologic). It has an option for smoothing out your mouse inputs so that it allows you to make smoother lines and objects in it.
(a) Civil action (1) Any person who, on or in connection with any goods or services, or any container for goods, uses in commerce any word, term, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact, which— (A) is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another person, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person, or (B) in commercial advertising or promotion, misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin of his or her or another person’s goods, services, or commercial activities, shall be liable in a civil action by any person who believes that he or she is or is likely to be damaged by such act.
I don't find Netflix's selection too bad, personally - then again, I watch a lot of documentaries (seriously, it's got Cosmos AND Ken Burn's Civil War, what more do you need?). As far as the selection being bad, that's not really Netflix's fault so much as it's the content owners.
The problem with gridlock is that there will likely be a vote on whether to raise the debt limit for the US or not. Some of the newly elected Republican Congressmen and Senators indicated that they will under no circumstances vote to increase it. This whole thing will probably get gridlocked like everything else.
Of course, when there's a gridlock about the debt limit, you run the risk of a governmental shutdown and you signal to everyone who buys treasury notes or treasury bills that the US might default on some of their debts, which would probably have a negative repercussion on the American economy. Worst case scenario - foreign treasury holders start dumping large amounts of US debt into the open market, and possibly severely devalue the dollar.
The Constitutional basis for Executive Agreement comes from the Article 2 powers of the the Executive to be the sole representative of the US in foreign matters. Yes, it's not explicit, but that's where the basis derives from.
In any case, I think it's an over-simple view that if it doesn't appear in the Constitution, then there's no force of law behind it (or is Unconstitutional). Remember, nothing in the Constitution mentioned creating the DARPA project that lead to the Internet, yet here we are.
Executive Agreements can have essentially the same scope as a Treaty. The primary difference between a Treaty and an Executive Agreement in its effect is the priority of supremacy they are applied.
We know from the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution that:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. - Art. VI, Sec. 2
However, within the federal laws themselves, there is a further priority of supremacy. Federal laws cannot be made in contradiction of the Constitution - for the Constitution is Supreme. Similarly, a federal statute can't be made in contradiction of a Treaty, because a Treaty is considered higher in supremacy to a Federal statute, but lower than the Constitution. (And federal rules and regulations fall below that of all Federal statutes, treaties, Constitution, etc.)
An Executive agreement tends to sit just slightly above federal laws, but they cannot contradict any treaties or the Constitution itself. What's the practical effect of this? Not much - but it is easier to strike them down in a court, I suppose.
The question comes down to whether this is a Treaty, which would require the advice and consent of 2/3rds of the Senate, or whether it's an Executive Agreement, which ultimately comes down to just an agreement between the executive branches of other agreeing nations and signed by the Executive. Nowadays, Executive Agreements are the norm in foreign policy and not Treaties.
It should also be noted that Verizon, as part of the settlement, is also refunding $52.8 million to their customers. But let's look at this more closely, shall we?
Verizon Wireless has 93.2 million subscribers. Let's assume (VERY conservatively) that only 5% of their customers were hit with bogus fees. Let's also assume that everyone who was overcharged was overcharged the bogus fee of $1.99 per month. The period in which the bogus fees were charged was about 3 years.
So we have: 4.66 million (or 5% of the customers) * (1.99 * 36) = 333,842,400 dollars. And that's the REALLY conservative estimate. If every one of Verizon's consumers were overcharged $1.99 for 3 years, then that would come out to be 6,676,848,000 dollars.
So, for 3 years, they plundered their customers with bogus fees and now they're walking away paying back less than 1/3rd of the REALLY LOW END estimate of their misbegotten gains. No wonder companies act so egregiously bad! Why would they have to do things according to the law if they'll make more by breaking the law than they'll ever have to pay back in fees?
I like how they characterized it as just some clerical mistake. I wish I made clerical mistakes that can net me $300 million dollars.
Normally, I'd nitpick about how the Federal Prosecutors asked for this and not Goldman's lawyers. However, with the political and economic landscape being what they are, federal prosecutors have really become Goldman's lawyers.
Good point, but what I meant by the baseball analogy isn't about the unrestrictedness or complexity of the problem so much as simply an example of a heuristic that we naturally have (although dependent on our personal levels of coordination). We're descended from tree-living ancestors who naturally developed the ability to judge an object's distances and movement (otherwise, our ancestors would've just fallen out of trees or failed to grab a branch as it jumps). Likewise, a mountain goat will be able to naturally able to make very complicated jumps on steep terrain without needing actual calculation of variables. And, of course, likewise the bees with their ability to go from flower to flower in efficient ways.
Is it possible that the honey bees aren't really solving the Traveling Salesmen problem at all, but rather employ some sort of unknown heuristic that leads to solutions that's close enough to optimal for it to look like that they've solved it? Maybe that's what we should be looking at rather than pondering if bees somehow have some sort of superior calculating ability over a supercomputer.
After all, when we're playing a game of baseball (right, right, I know, this is slashdot), and a ball is coming towards us, we aren't calculating in our heads the velocity, air resistance and other variables involved in catching the ball. We just reach out our arms and our brain makes its best guess based on some sort of heuristic or something to make the catch.
I think it looks great, but I can't help but think that using application windows like on a regular desktop is maybe a step backwards for multitouch tablet devices. Sure, people are familiar with opening and maximizing or minimizing windows, but the buttons for such windows are small compared to the rest of the screen and hard to hit with clumsy fingers (especially mine). It's nice that the Unity desktop has the vertical launch bar on the left side - could this launch bar not be modified to function almost as a tab bar for open applications? That'd be much easier, I think, for touch and gesture based devices. Or, even better, use the Expose style overview mode to switch between windows (as shown in the video) rather than allowing the user to reshape and manipulate windows directly.
Slashdot Mirror
From Wikipedia:
The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) is a right-leaning 501(c)(3) non-profit group that monitors and reports on the ethics of public officials, supporters of liberal causes, and labor unions in the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Legal_and_Policy_Center
This actually isn't true for all jurisdictions, so depending on what state you are in, you might wind up with criminal charges. Certain states (for example, New York) impose a duty to retreat upon parties in danger. That is to say, if you are being attacked, you have a duty to retreat to a safe place. Only when you no longer can retreat (i.e., you are either cornered or you are in your home) can you resort to self defense.
How about, gee, I dunno, profiling passengers? You know, be politically incorrect and actually practice forensic science for a change, and stop harassing and inconveniencing the rest of us?
This would work up until the point terrorists realize they should recruit suicide bombers who don't fit the profile of a terrorist. Actually, indications are that they've already started to do so.
Of course, the TSA can make airplanes more secure by simply expanding the profile to all humans in general. Then you'll have absolute security - sure it's useless, but it'll be secure.
I thought religious fundamentalists are merely a subset of anti-science loons.
So, is a mini-big bang just a bang, then?
I hate this constant need for science journalists to oversell and over-hype an outstanding achievement with misleading hyperbole. They didn't create mini big bangs. They smashed lead ions to try to recreate the conditions that existed shortly after the big bang. It's already an impressive enough achievement without cheapening it with sensationalist BS.
Ouch! I'm sorry about your friend's situation. I've often found that mice are pretty good for mitigating clumsy hands. For example, when I do really really detailed graphical work in GIMP, I often zoom down to really high levels and work on it a little bit at a time, which gives you a lot of leeway and control. Plus, a lot of programs have ways of mitigating shaky or clumsy hands - bezier tools, for instance, are a godsend to a guy like me whose hands shake constantly (probably due to the 3 Monster drinks I just had).
As far as 3D stuff goes, does your friend know about Sculptris? It's a simple 3D sculpting tool that is able to export to Zbrush (and in fact was just purchased by Zbrush's parent company, Pixologic). It has an option for smoothing out your mouse inputs so that it allows you to make smoother lines and objects in it.
15 USC 1125(a) says:
(a) Civil action
(1) Any person who, on or in connection with any goods or services, or any container for goods, uses in commerce any word, term, name, symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any false designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, or false or misleading representation of fact, which—
(A) is likely to cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another person, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her goods, services, or commercial activities by another person, or
(B) in commercial advertising or promotion, misrepresents the nature, characteristics, qualities, or geographic origin of his or her or another person’s goods, services, or commercial activities,
shall be liable in a civil action by any person who believes that he or she is or is likely to be damaged by such act.
C'mon, consumers, let's get lawsuity.
I don't find Netflix's selection too bad, personally - then again, I watch a lot of documentaries (seriously, it's got Cosmos AND Ken Burn's Civil War, what more do you need?). As far as the selection being bad, that's not really Netflix's fault so much as it's the content owners.
The problem with gridlock is that there will likely be a vote on whether to raise the debt limit for the US or not. Some of the newly elected Republican Congressmen and Senators indicated that they will under no circumstances vote to increase it. This whole thing will probably get gridlocked like everything else.
Of course, when there's a gridlock about the debt limit, you run the risk of a governmental shutdown and you signal to everyone who buys treasury notes or treasury bills that the US might default on some of their debts, which would probably have a negative repercussion on the American economy. Worst case scenario - foreign treasury holders start dumping large amounts of US debt into the open market, and possibly severely devalue the dollar.
Only, this time it's "Who watches the watchers?"
The Constitutional basis for Executive Agreement comes from the Article 2 powers of the the Executive to be the sole representative of the US in foreign matters. Yes, it's not explicit, but that's where the basis derives from.
In any case, I think it's an over-simple view that if it doesn't appear in the Constitution, then there's no force of law behind it (or is Unconstitutional). Remember, nothing in the Constitution mentioned creating the DARPA project that lead to the Internet, yet here we are.
Executive Agreements can have essentially the same scope as a Treaty. The primary difference between a Treaty and an Executive Agreement in its effect is the priority of supremacy they are applied.
We know from the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution that:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. - Art. VI, Sec. 2
However, within the federal laws themselves, there is a further priority of supremacy. Federal laws cannot be made in contradiction of the Constitution - for the Constitution is Supreme. Similarly, a federal statute can't be made in contradiction of a Treaty, because a Treaty is considered higher in supremacy to a Federal statute, but lower than the Constitution. (And federal rules and regulations fall below that of all Federal statutes, treaties, Constitution, etc.)
An Executive agreement tends to sit just slightly above federal laws, but they cannot contradict any treaties or the Constitution itself. What's the practical effect of this? Not much - but it is easier to strike them down in a court, I suppose.
The question comes down to whether this is a Treaty, which would require the advice and consent of 2/3rds of the Senate, or whether it's an Executive Agreement, which ultimately comes down to just an agreement between the executive branches of other agreeing nations and signed by the Executive. Nowadays, Executive Agreements are the norm in foreign policy and not Treaties.
That was a joke - not to be taken literally.
This last line caught my eye.
The vehicles ran at maximum speeds of 60 kilometres per hour and had to be recharged for eight hours after every two to three hours of driving.
I think Marco Polo probably made better time with camels. Still an impressive feat, though.
It should also be noted that Verizon, as part of the settlement, is also refunding $52.8 million to their customers. But let's look at this more closely, shall we?
Verizon Wireless has 93.2 million subscribers. Let's assume (VERY conservatively) that only 5% of their customers were hit with bogus fees. Let's also assume that everyone who was overcharged was overcharged the bogus fee of $1.99 per month. The period in which the bogus fees were charged was about 3 years.
So we have: 4.66 million (or 5% of the customers) * (1.99 * 36) = 333,842,400 dollars. And that's the REALLY conservative estimate.
If every one of Verizon's consumers were overcharged $1.99 for 3 years, then that would come out to be 6,676,848,000 dollars.
So, for 3 years, they plundered their customers with bogus fees and now they're walking away paying back less than 1/3rd of the REALLY LOW END estimate of their misbegotten gains. No wonder companies act so egregiously bad! Why would they have to do things according to the law if they'll make more by breaking the law than they'll ever have to pay back in fees?
I like how they characterized it as just some clerical mistake. I wish I made clerical mistakes that can net me $300 million dollars.
Normally, I'd nitpick about how the Federal Prosecutors asked for this and not Goldman's lawyers. However, with the political and economic landscape being what they are, federal prosecutors have really become Goldman's lawyers.
Next thing you know, they'll be telling us that energy companies leans to the right.
Thanks, man, I'll check it out.
Good point, but what I meant by the baseball analogy isn't about the unrestrictedness or complexity of the problem so much as simply an example of a heuristic that we naturally have (although dependent on our personal levels of coordination). We're descended from tree-living ancestors who naturally developed the ability to judge an object's distances and movement (otherwise, our ancestors would've just fallen out of trees or failed to grab a branch as it jumps). Likewise, a mountain goat will be able to naturally able to make very complicated jumps on steep terrain without needing actual calculation of variables. And, of course, likewise the bees with their ability to go from flower to flower in efficient ways.
Is it possible that the honey bees aren't really solving the Traveling Salesmen problem at all, but rather employ some sort of unknown heuristic that leads to solutions that's close enough to optimal for it to look like that they've solved it? Maybe that's what we should be looking at rather than pondering if bees somehow have some sort of superior calculating ability over a supercomputer.
After all, when we're playing a game of baseball (right, right, I know, this is slashdot), and a ball is coming towards us, we aren't calculating in our heads the velocity, air resistance and other variables involved in catching the ball. We just reach out our arms and our brain makes its best guess based on some sort of heuristic or something to make the catch.
Let's hope this doesn't catch on in Japan. We don't need Dog shaking machines to complement their dog washing machines.
I think it's better if you don't know, since the law only require you to declare porn if you THINK it's illegal.
I think it looks great, but I can't help but think that using application windows like on a regular desktop is maybe a step backwards for multitouch tablet devices. Sure, people are familiar with opening and maximizing or minimizing windows, but the buttons for such windows are small compared to the rest of the screen and hard to hit with clumsy fingers (especially mine). It's nice that the Unity desktop has the vertical launch bar on the left side - could this launch bar not be modified to function almost as a tab bar for open applications? That'd be much easier, I think, for touch and gesture based devices. Or, even better, use the Expose style overview mode to switch between windows (as shown in the video) rather than allowing the user to reshape and manipulate windows directly.
Because Microsoft has a proven track record for Developers Developers Developers!