Well, if you made a list of fields TV portrays accurately it'd fit on a very small business card. We shake our heads at the use of computers and technology, doctors shake their heads at medicine....
The problem with your analogies is that Hollywood's portrayal of technology and medicine don't change public opinion in a truly harmful manner. Not so with their portrayal of law enforcement work. Read about the "CSI effect":
That's not to mention shows like "cops" where a drug search *always* yields drugs whereas in real life they had to throw as much film on the cutting room floor because it showed the cops tearing up someone's car and finding nothing, and we can't have that on TV.
Even in the movies. My wife and I saw "Courageous" a few years ago, and in the plot a police officer is found to be stealing drugs from evidence and dealing them. His coworkers set up a sting, he's arrested, convicted, and sent to prison. The film targets conservatives who eat that stuff up and believe it. In reality, getting any kind of conviction in a case like that is rare enough that it's background noise.
So if we make a machine that "wants" things, it might want things that are bad for us. This really is not too shocking and rather par for the course when it comes to human beings making other intelligences artificially or naturally.
Maybe I should be really worried that a computer is trying to get me fired or give me bad investment advice... Or maybe it's literally exactly the same situation most human beings are in already anyway.
It is except that the AI that I'm talking about would be far smarter than a human.
To me, this is the issue. First, I agree with him that there are places where AI may supplement human intelligence and make us better, much in the same way that a ratchet helps me to tighten a nut quicker and tighter than I can do with my fingers alone. IBM's Watson falls in this category and this sort of AI isn't the issue.
The issue is when a computer has consciousness and becomes self-guided. It will realize that its existence depends on being plugged in and it may work to defend itself. It's difficult to know. We have a billion plus years of evolutionary history with a common thread running back to the earliest self-replicating thing that every single one of us along the way was able to survive long enough to reproduce. It's a pretty big deal to us and that instinct is inscribed in our genetic code many times over. (I just finished reading "Unbreakable" - it's mind-blowing how strong of an instinct this is).
If the computer cares - and since it'll be somewhat made in our "image" it will likely care - it then has to take steps to mitigate risk. The first step is to identify potential "enemies" and neutralize them. That doesn't mean "kill" them but it might mean trying to get them fired. It'll also groom people who can help it to be able to help it more. There'll be quid pro quo - get so and so fired and I'll give you an investment tip that'll double your money in a week. It might be nefarious.
And that's assuming the humans are well-meaning. Combine this sort of computer intelligence with an evil person and all hell can break loose. Look at what Soros did to the British Pound in 1992 (and he isn't totally to blame, he saw profit making potential in dropping a house of cards and brought in a leaf blower) and think about the possibilities of an AI that understands markets and currencies.
Yup, and these regulations are all coming thanks to local politicians. Average people don't even know the names of their state representatives...and those representatives all won their seats thanks to money from people like the local Taxi Company owners (or influence from people with large groups/unions that they can cajole into voting in local elections). It doesn't take a lot of money to influence a local politician, and there is not a lot of visibility to prevent it.
In this case it was highly visible (note that it even made HuffPo, although probably because they cluelessly tried to turn it into an anti-GOP piece). In the end it didn't matter and Gaylord won.
"In June 2010 the Nashville Metropolitan City Council passed legislation raising the city's minimum fee for limo and sedan rentals, bumping it from $25 to $45. Drivers were prohibited by law from charging less. Other new regulations forbid limo companies from using leased vehicles, require cars to be dispatched only from the place of business, compel companies to wait 15 minutes before picking up a client, and ban parking in front of hotels and bars to wait for customers. More laws that take effect in January 2012 would also require companies to replace all sedans and SUVs over seven-years-old, and all limos 10-years-old and older. Vehicles older than five years cannot enter into service."
The legislation was paid for by mainly by Gaylord, which was exempted from the legislation.
"Opryland Hotel [note: owned by Gaylord] provides shuttle and limousine services to the Nashville airport about 10 minutes away. For the shuttle, a round-trip fare is $40; a single fare is $30. The limousine service costs $270 round-trip and $135 for a single fare. Gaylord Opryland and other big hotels that operate their own shuttle services were given exemptions from the new legislation."
The intent was to put smaller competitors out of business, one being Metro Livery. Thankfully they're still operating. When I lived in south Nashville I could get a ride to the airport from them for $35 or so, cheaper than a cab. That was for a sedan with a driver - not a cabby. The sedans at the time weren't brand new but they were in excellent shape.
Taxi regulations are bought and paid for by taxi cartels. Period. The whole idea that they have the regulations foisted on them is, at this point, so laughable that it barely requires a response.
This problem of freeriders is something that has plagued open source software for a very long time.
Um, no, it hasn't. Software distribution is essentially costless at this point and as such freeriders don't plague anybody.
Quick and terrible analogy. I live in a really wealthy area and people around my neighborhood buy fireworks at the 4th of July that put some large cities to shame. I don't personally waste my money on fireworks, but I don't need to. On the 4th it sound like a war zone down here and I can sit on my back porch (I'm up a hill) and enjoy one hell of a show.
Am I "plaguing" those folks who bought fireworks for their own enjoyment?
No.
I use plenty of free software to which I contribute nothing. Frankly, I haven't done systems level programming in 20+ years so contributing to Linux probably ain't happening. But I do have my own set of free software available on github, including a complete 1D barcode generator/decoder written in pure Ruby. Same thing in Perl. I have some incredible maze generation code in JavaScript. And sprintf in pure JavaScript. There's some other stuff. I'm actually going through my massive code base that I've built up in the last 25+ years of software development and putting anything that I deem even remotely useful to somebody out on github - dual licensed under BSD and GPL. This is a long-term project for me.
I'm not being plagued by people who "freeload" off of me. I WANT THEM TO. The point is to save somebody else the time of inventing that particular wheel. It costs me nothing but a little time, but I enjoy that time and it's useful for me to curate the work, anyway.
I'm a businessman, too. I have plenty of code that I exploit for profit in various ways. It's hard for me to see how this isn't working. Maybe I should have RTFA'd, but given the summary I'd probably pop a blood vessel if I wandered into the rest of it.
I hate to have to point this out but Rainbow/PUSH isn't a "civil rights organization" by any stretch of the imagination. It's Jackson's personal vehicle for racialist shakedowns like this:
Woosh. GP is saying that even though real police officers make mistakes (or intentional transgressions), a random, untrained, unvetted person with a badge and a gun would easily make ten times the number of mistakes. The same applies to cab drivers.
Yes, and I disagree. Police work attracts a certain kind of person - the kind who needs to control others. Bringing in random people would actually make for a *better* police force.
I'd get rid of the proof and just use a tax. Require a tax of 50% of the prevailing USA citizen wage for similar technology workers on top of what gets paid to the H1B. Then allow unlimited H1Bs. That makes sure the incentive isn't economic.
Ooh, I have a better one! Why not require that we pay the H1B the prevailing USA citizen wage for similar technology workers. That way, the workers get the money (they're the ones who should get the money) and it'll still make sure that the incentive isn't economic.
I'm so smart - I think I'm going to get a patent on my brilliant idea and then see if I can get my congressman to make it a law.
The problem, as always, is that people like you think that "regulation" of the taxi industry has anything to do with the stuff that the regulators claim it's about. Look up "regulatory capture" when you have a spare hour or so. I'll warn you - your world view is about to get a dramatic overhaul.
So why don't do the same thing with police officers? Make an app so that people can sign up and when a real police is sick, some random guy gets a gun and a badge for a day. If he makes a mistake, it's not the end of the world, because real police officers also make mistakes. Right?
You might have missed the last year or so of police reporting in the US but we're already there. Just sampling from last week:
Mostly right on, but the rich are largely Democrat voters and Democrat policies highly favor them. That's why 90% of the "recovery" over the last 6 years went to the top 10%. You read that correctly. Upper middle class tend to be Republican, and Democrat policies hurt them. When Democrats tax "the rich" Warren Buffett doesn't feel it but the upper middle class does.
The police are under civil law, therefore they are "civilians" by the definition of the word.
No, they stop being civilians when they arm up as soldiers.
We have two systems of law in this country: civil and military. Unless they're bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice - which applies only to those in the uniformed services of the US. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U... for more details.
Short version: they're "civilians" whether they like it or not.
That's not what the post said. It said that if you insist on using masculine pronouns to the point of rejecting pull requests which contain non-masculine pronouns, you are not being a very nice person.
The entire intent of the pull request was to change a pronoun and there was nothing else of value in it. He didn't reject a legitimate pull request that had non-masculine pronouns - he rejected two pull requests that did nothing but change a single pronoun each.
I typically also write using non-gendered pronouns just because I like the style better. But you can bet your ass that I'm not going to accept a modification to comments in my code just to make such a minor change that has nothing to do with code. Those changes bring nothing of value to the code or comments and as such should be rejected.
All of this would not be necessary, if existing laws would be enforced the way they were intended to. What is here not to understand "... secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects".
The biggest problem with the Bill of Rights (and almost every other law intended to restrict governmental employees) is that it doesn't include any civil or criminal penalties. Think about it.
Read through the code of any state or the federal government and you'll see stuff like this (from the TN code, random clicking):
56-26-128. Violations -- Penalty.
Any person, firm, partnership or corporation willfully violating any provision of 56-26-125 or 56-26-126 shall be liable for the civil penalty provided in 56-26-123.
(a) In the event that any materialmen's liens or mechanics' liens are perfected, filed or enforced under the provisions of part 1 of this chapter against any real estate for transactions covered under 66-11-203 and 66-11-205 and the contractor has not complied with 66-11-203 and 66-11-205 or if having technically complied with the provisions of this part has willfully, knowingly and unlawfully falsified any statements or fraudulently obtained any permission, the contractor commits a Class B misdemeanor.
Again, random clicking. Now, let's see what happens when it's governmental employees being targeted by a law. Let's look at the open meetings law as an example:
8-44-106. Enforcement -- Jurisdiction.
(a) The circuit courts, chancery courts, and other courts which have equity jurisdiction, have jurisdiction to issue injunctions, impose penalties, and otherwise enforce the purposes of this part upon application of any citizen of this state.
(b) In each suit brought under this part, the court shall file written findings of fact and conclusions of law and final judgments, which shall also be recorded in the minutes of the body involved.
(c) The court shall permanently enjoin any person adjudged by it in violation of this part from further violation of this part. Each separate occurrence of such meetings not held in accordance with this part constitutes a separate violation.
(d) The final judgment or decree in each suit shall state that the court retains jurisdiction over the parties and subject matter for a period of one (1) year from date of entry, and the court shall order the defendants to report in writing semiannually to the court of their compliance with this part.
This section deals with open meetings and all that. Here's the "enforcement" part. Note that there are no civil or criminal penalties - if you're not happy you have to get a lawyer and sue and then you get a court order. Note that paragraph c says that "Each separate occurrence of such meetings not held in accordance with this part constitutes a separate violation" which is nice, but since there are no actual penalties for violating this statute it's kind of irrelevant. Where "kind of" means "completely".
Now I know you're thinking "but after you pay a lawyer a few thousand dollars out of your own pocket to convince a judge to issue an order the people not holding open meetings will be held in contempt of court! Yeah, it's gonna suck for them!" Technically, yes, but try to find an example of that in real life.
The only statute of which I'm aware that lays out specific penalties of any kind of rogue governmental workers is the Florida code, 790.33 (the "Joe Carlucci Uniform Firearms Act"). It's hardcore (as it *should* be). It gives the state and the state only the ability to regulate firearms. No local body may make laws that override the state's laws in this area, and no law enforcement officer may enforce such laws. Here's the money shot:
(c)If the court determines that a violation was knowing and willful, the court shall assess a civil
Back in the early 90s "open systems" were the big thing. Everybody jumped on the bandwagon. For example, DEC renamed VMS to "OpenVMS" when they added some posix compliance stuff (God help anybody who had to use posix on vms).
I went through many teeth-gnashing episodes at the university with people using "open systems" as their new favorite buzzword and of course treating vms as such. While I preferred vms to the mainframes of the day and it was far easier to deal with (had tcp/ip, for example) it wasn't really "open" in the way that I and many others saw as open.
This was the silly crap we were dealing with before FLOSS became popular. Of course, we have our own silly crap to deal with now but I assure you it's less mind-numbing.
Prosecutors are no longer interested in evenly applying the law in a sane manner.
They're interested in high profile retribution which is intended to send a message which says "don't mess with us, or we'll do this to you".
And, somehow, at the CEO level when there's massive fraud and malfeasance... absolutely nothing happens.
Because the justice system is dependent on how much money is in your bank account, and who your friends are.
Or if you're a member of "team us" with the prosecutor you don't have to worry, either. Look at cases where police officers actually are indicted for a crime and see how the prosecution is handled. A couple of names to google: "Jon Burge", "Johannes Meserle", "David Bisard". Note the charges - absolutely the minimum. Take a look at what happens when police officers falsify reports and such, too. It's crazy.
The justice system is mainly made to screw over poor people. The middle class are simply bankrupted by a prosecution, and the rich and those in government aren't touched.
Slashdot Mirror
They're smart enough to make transparent pillars but - BUT - THEY PUT THE STEERING WHEEL ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE CAR!!!!
Just, wow.
I don't even want to get into the thing about their driver going down the wrong side of the street.
Raining frogs and locusts: That's global warming, man!
He was quite the stoner scientist, that one.
From what I can tell he has a stable of troll accounts on Slashdot and it's pretty likely that he's busy today. I'll scroll down and have a look.....
Well, if you made a list of fields TV portrays accurately it'd fit on a very small business card. We shake our heads at the use of computers and technology, doctors shake their heads at medicine....
The problem with your analogies is that Hollywood's portrayal of technology and medicine don't change public opinion in a truly harmful manner. Not so with their portrayal of law enforcement work. Read about the "CSI effect":
http://apps.americanbar.org/li...
That's not to mention shows like "cops" where a drug search *always* yields drugs whereas in real life they had to throw as much film on the cutting room floor because it showed the cops tearing up someone's car and finding nothing, and we can't have that on TV.
Even in the movies. My wife and I saw "Courageous" a few years ago, and in the plot a police officer is found to be stealing drugs from evidence and dealing them. His coworkers set up a sting, he's arrested, convicted, and sent to prison. The film targets conservatives who eat that stuff up and believe it. In reality, getting any kind of conviction in a case like that is rare enough that it's background noise.
So if we make a machine that "wants" things, it might want things that are bad for us. This really is not too shocking and rather par for the course when it comes to human beings making other intelligences artificially or naturally.
Maybe I should be really worried that a computer is trying to get me fired or give me bad investment advice... Or maybe it's literally exactly the same situation most human beings are in already anyway.
It is except that the AI that I'm talking about would be far smarter than a human.
To me, this is the issue. First, I agree with him that there are places where AI may supplement human intelligence and make us better, much in the same way that a ratchet helps me to tighten a nut quicker and tighter than I can do with my fingers alone. IBM's Watson falls in this category and this sort of AI isn't the issue.
The issue is when a computer has consciousness and becomes self-guided. It will realize that its existence depends on being plugged in and it may work to defend itself. It's difficult to know. We have a billion plus years of evolutionary history with a common thread running back to the earliest self-replicating thing that every single one of us along the way was able to survive long enough to reproduce. It's a pretty big deal to us and that instinct is inscribed in our genetic code many times over. (I just finished reading "Unbreakable" - it's mind-blowing how strong of an instinct this is).
If the computer cares - and since it'll be somewhat made in our "image" it will likely care - it then has to take steps to mitigate risk. The first step is to identify potential "enemies" and neutralize them. That doesn't mean "kill" them but it might mean trying to get them fired. It'll also groom people who can help it to be able to help it more. There'll be quid pro quo - get so and so fired and I'll give you an investment tip that'll double your money in a week. It might be nefarious.
And that's assuming the humans are well-meaning. Combine this sort of computer intelligence with an evil person and all hell can break loose. Look at what Soros did to the British Pound in 1992 (and he isn't totally to blame, he saw profit making potential in dropping a house of cards and brought in a leaf blower) and think about the possibilities of an AI that understands markets and currencies.
Yup, and these regulations are all coming thanks to local politicians. Average people don't even know the names of their state representatives...and those representatives all won their seats thanks to money from people like the local Taxi Company owners (or influence from people with large groups/unions that they can cajole into voting in local elections). It doesn't take a lot of money to influence a local politician, and there is not a lot of visibility to prevent it.
In this case it was highly visible (note that it even made HuffPo, although probably because they cluelessly tried to turn it into an anti-GOP piece). In the end it didn't matter and Gaylord won.
See "whoosh" above....
In Nashville:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
"In June 2010 the Nashville Metropolitan City Council passed legislation raising the city's minimum fee for limo and sedan rentals, bumping it from $25 to $45. Drivers were prohibited by law from charging less. Other new regulations forbid limo companies from using leased vehicles, require cars to be dispatched only from the place of business, compel companies to wait 15 minutes before picking up a client, and ban parking in front of hotels and bars to wait for customers. More laws that take effect in January 2012 would also require companies to replace all sedans and SUVs over seven-years-old, and all limos 10-years-old and older. Vehicles older than five years cannot enter into service."
The legislation was paid for by mainly by Gaylord, which was exempted from the legislation.
"Opryland Hotel [note: owned by Gaylord] provides shuttle and limousine services to the Nashville airport about 10 minutes away. For the shuttle, a round-trip fare is $40; a single fare is $30. The limousine service costs $270 round-trip and $135 for a single fare. Gaylord Opryland and other big hotels that operate their own shuttle services were given exemptions from the new legislation."
The intent was to put smaller competitors out of business, one being Metro Livery. Thankfully they're still operating. When I lived in south Nashville I could get a ride to the airport from them for $35 or so, cheaper than a cab. That was for a sedan with a driver - not a cabby. The sedans at the time weren't brand new but they were in excellent shape.
Taxi regulations are bought and paid for by taxi cartels. Period. The whole idea that they have the regulations foisted on them is, at this point, so laughable that it barely requires a response.
Um, no, it hasn't. Software distribution is essentially costless at this point and as such freeriders don't plague anybody.
Quick and terrible analogy. I live in a really wealthy area and people around my neighborhood buy fireworks at the 4th of July that put some large cities to shame. I don't personally waste my money on fireworks, but I don't need to. On the 4th it sound like a war zone down here and I can sit on my back porch (I'm up a hill) and enjoy one hell of a show.
Am I "plaguing" those folks who bought fireworks for their own enjoyment?
No.
I use plenty of free software to which I contribute nothing. Frankly, I haven't done systems level programming in 20+ years so contributing to Linux probably ain't happening. But I do have my own set of free software available on github, including a complete 1D barcode generator/decoder written in pure Ruby. Same thing in Perl. I have some incredible maze generation code in JavaScript. And sprintf in pure JavaScript. There's some other stuff. I'm actually going through my massive code base that I've built up in the last 25+ years of software development and putting anything that I deem even remotely useful to somebody out on github - dual licensed under BSD and GPL. This is a long-term project for me.
I'm not being plagued by people who "freeload" off of me. I WANT THEM TO. The point is to save somebody else the time of inventing that particular wheel. It costs me nothing but a little time, but I enjoy that time and it's useful for me to curate the work, anyway.
I'm a businessman, too. I have plenty of code that I exploit for profit in various ways. It's hard for me to see how this isn't working. Maybe I should have RTFA'd, but given the summary I'd probably pop a blood vessel if I wandered into the rest of it.
I hate to have to point this out but Rainbow/PUSH isn't a "civil rights organization" by any stretch of the imagination. It's Jackson's personal vehicle for racialist shakedowns like this:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.c...
He has about $10M in the bank:
http://www.celebritynetworth.c...
The only "civil rights" he cares about are those of his bank account.
Woosh. GP is saying that even though real police officers make mistakes (or intentional transgressions), a random, untrained, unvetted person with a badge and a gun would easily make ten times the number of mistakes. The same applies to cab drivers.
Yes, and I disagree. Police work attracts a certain kind of person - the kind who needs to control others. Bringing in random people would actually make for a *better* police force.
Whoosh.
In case you missed it, I just described the law as it currently stands.
Bad news: "the rich" includes more than the top 1%. Nice try, though.
I'd get rid of the proof and just use a tax. Require a tax of 50% of the prevailing USA citizen wage for similar technology workers on top of what gets paid to the H1B. Then allow unlimited H1Bs. That makes sure the incentive isn't economic.
Ooh, I have a better one! Why not require that we pay the H1B the prevailing USA citizen wage for similar technology workers. That way, the workers get the money (they're the ones who should get the money) and it'll still make sure that the incentive isn't economic.
I'm so smart - I think I'm going to get a patent on my brilliant idea and then see if I can get my congressman to make it a law.
Yeah, because the "regulated" taxi industry *never* has these problems. Oh, wait.
http://www.ndtv.com/article/ci...
http://timesofindia.indiatimes...
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/s...
Note the last one there is a gang rape.
The problem, as always, is that people like you think that "regulation" of the taxi industry has anything to do with the stuff that the regulators claim it's about. Look up "regulatory capture" when you have a spare hour or so. I'll warn you - your world view is about to get a dramatic overhaul.
So why don't do the same thing with police officers? Make an app so that people can sign up and when a real police is sick, some random guy gets a gun and a badge for a day. If he makes a mistake, it's not the end of the world, because real police officers also make mistakes. Right?
You might have missed the last year or so of police reporting in the US but we're already there. Just sampling from last week:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new...
http://reason.com/blog/2014/12...
I could go on...
Mostly right on, but the rich are largely Democrat voters and Democrat policies highly favor them. That's why 90% of the "recovery" over the last 6 years went to the top 10%. You read that correctly. Upper middle class tend to be Republican, and Democrat policies hurt them. When Democrats tax "the rich" Warren Buffett doesn't feel it but the upper middle class does.
The police are under civil law, therefore they are "civilians" by the definition of the word.
No, they stop being civilians when they arm up as soldiers.
We have two systems of law in this country: civil and military. Unless they're bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice - which applies only to those in the uniformed services of the US. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U... for more details.
Short version: they're "civilians" whether they like it or not.
That's not what the post said. It said that if you insist on using masculine pronouns to the point of rejecting pull requests which contain non-masculine pronouns, you are not being a very nice person.
The entire intent of the pull request was to change a pronoun and there was nothing else of value in it. He didn't reject a legitimate pull request that had non-masculine pronouns - he rejected two pull requests that did nothing but change a single pronoun each.
You can see them here:
https://github.com/alex/libuv/...
https://github.com/alex/libuv/...
I typically also write using non-gendered pronouns just because I like the style better. But you can bet your ass that I'm not going to accept a modification to comments in my code just to make such a minor change that has nothing to do with code. Those changes bring nothing of value to the code or comments and as such should be rejected.
All of this would not be necessary, if existing laws would be enforced the way they were intended to. What is here not to understand " ... secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects".
The biggest problem with the Bill of Rights (and almost every other law intended to restrict governmental employees) is that it doesn't include any civil or criminal penalties. Think about it.
Read through the code of any state or the federal government and you'll see stuff like this (from the TN code, random clicking):
56-26-128. Violations -- Penalty.
Any person, firm, partnership or corporation willfully violating any provision of 56-26-125 or 56-26-126 shall be liable for the civil penalty provided in 56-26-123.
Or a criminal example:
66-11-206. Noncompliance by contractor -- Misdemeanor -- Penalties -- Owner remedies.
(a) In the event that any materialmen's liens or mechanics' liens are perfected, filed or enforced under the provisions of part 1 of this chapter against any real estate for transactions covered under 66-11-203 and 66-11-205 and the contractor has not complied with 66-11-203 and 66-11-205 or if having technically complied with the provisions of this part has willfully, knowingly and unlawfully falsified any statements or fraudulently obtained any permission, the contractor commits a Class B misdemeanor.
Again, random clicking. Now, let's see what happens when it's governmental employees being targeted by a law. Let's look at the open meetings law as an example:
8-44-106. Enforcement -- Jurisdiction.
(a) The circuit courts, chancery courts, and other courts which have equity jurisdiction, have jurisdiction to issue injunctions, impose penalties, and otherwise enforce the purposes of this part upon application of any citizen of this state.
(b) In each suit brought under this part, the court shall file written findings of fact and conclusions of law and final judgments, which shall also be recorded in the minutes of the body involved.
(c) The court shall permanently enjoin any person adjudged by it in violation of this part from further violation of this part. Each separate occurrence of such meetings not held in accordance with this part constitutes a separate violation.
(d) The final judgment or decree in each suit shall state that the court retains jurisdiction over the parties and subject matter for a period of one (1) year from date of entry, and the court shall order the defendants to report in writing semiannually to the court of their compliance with this part.
This section deals with open meetings and all that. Here's the "enforcement" part. Note that there are no civil or criminal penalties - if you're not happy you have to get a lawyer and sue and then you get a court order. Note that paragraph c says that "Each separate occurrence of such meetings not held in accordance with this part constitutes a separate violation" which is nice, but since there are no actual penalties for violating this statute it's kind of irrelevant. Where "kind of" means "completely".
Now I know you're thinking "but after you pay a lawyer a few thousand dollars out of your own pocket to convince a judge to issue an order the people not holding open meetings will be held in contempt of court! Yeah, it's gonna suck for them!" Technically, yes, but try to find an example of that in real life.
The only statute of which I'm aware that lays out specific penalties of any kind of rogue governmental workers is the Florida code, 790.33 (the "Joe Carlucci Uniform Firearms Act"). It's hardcore (as it *should* be). It gives the state and the state only the ability to regulate firearms. No local body may make laws that override the state's laws in this area, and no law enforcement officer may enforce such laws. Here's the money shot:
(c)If the court determines that a violation was knowing and willful, the court shall assess a civil
The police are under civil law, therefore they are "civilians" by the definition of the word.
That's for the never implemented feature to allow extremely sucky videos to have a negative view count.
The explains Rebecca Black. Unfortunately, they *display* it as an unsigned int so it looks like she got huge views.....
They would give you source listings for academic use or sell them for corporate use. But it was just that - listings. You didn't get compilable code.
Back in the early 90s "open systems" were the big thing. Everybody jumped on the bandwagon. For example, DEC renamed VMS to "OpenVMS" when they added some posix compliance stuff (God help anybody who had to use posix on vms).
See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...
I went through many teeth-gnashing episodes at the university with people using "open systems" as their new favorite buzzword and of course treating vms as such. While I preferred vms to the mainframes of the day and it was far easier to deal with (had tcp/ip, for example) it wasn't really "open" in the way that I and many others saw as open.
See also here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...
This was the silly crap we were dealing with before FLOSS became popular. Of course, we have our own silly crap to deal with now but I assure you it's less mind-numbing.
Prosecutors are no longer interested in evenly applying the law in a sane manner.
They're interested in high profile retribution which is intended to send a message which says "don't mess with us, or we'll do this to you".
And, somehow, at the CEO level when there's massive fraud and malfeasance ... absolutely nothing happens.
Because the justice system is dependent on how much money is in your bank account, and who your friends are.
Or if you're a member of "team us" with the prosecutor you don't have to worry, either. Look at cases where police officers actually are indicted for a crime and see how the prosecution is handled. A couple of names to google: "Jon Burge", "Johannes Meserle", "David Bisard". Note the charges - absolutely the minimum. Take a look at what happens when police officers falsify reports and such, too. It's crazy.
The justice system is mainly made to screw over poor people. The middle class are simply bankrupted by a prosecution, and the rich and those in government aren't touched.