How does your city do with utilities? If they were owned by a private corporation, do you think you would have more or less influence on them? Would they be more or less expensive? Are these good or a bad things for your community? Those are the important questions to ask.
They are public services that are better off handled by a third party and not a government organization. Water and sewage are pretty much essential services that should be handled by the government to keep service levels high and not so much worry about the cost. Internet is not anywhere even close to being an essential service and thus is why it should be lumped in with arts and liquor as something that local governments shouldn't do.
We really don't need yet another venture owned and operated by the city (in one way or another, whether that be through a third party management company or not) that loses money because they are operating a service that they really don't know how to.
It may well be that having installed cameras, less people jump the lights, and therefore a shorter yellow light time becomes acceptable. The original longer yellow light only existing because of jackasses.
That would be 100% true if every city in every state used the EXACT same yellow light duration at all times of the day, unfortunately they do not and thus the reason why the danger exists.
So basically, you want to be able to get away with a crime you would be successfully prosecuted for if there was camera evidence. No sympathy.
I don't want to get away with anything. I just don't think that law was written with cameras in mind and our extrapolation to include them as acceptable is wrong. You can disagree with me all you like but it is a serious concern that no one expected to have to deal with 200 years ago.
You have a problem with this, as opposed to a private citizen witness, because you want to preserve the right to accuse a private citizen witness who is telling the truth of lying? You want to preserve the option of lying about someone else who's telling the truth?
In a court of law an eyewitness account can be filtered through time and personal judgment. I never said that the witness was lying, just that they aren't as useful as a video account of the happenings--especially when we're looking at 1+ year later.
I wear my seat belt and require them to be used by others when I drive. I'm not against that but I am against the police having the authority to pull someone over for the offense (it hasn't come to that in MN yet but it will eventually). I can't always tell when my wife has her belt on in the car when I'm sitting next to her (it blends in with the color of clothing she wears most frequently), how the fuck is the cop going to do so from afar?
We love the nanny state when it protects us from ourselves, but we don't want them watching.
I don't know about the rest of Slashdot (I haven't really seen that rhetoric but if you do, I won't argue) but I am certainly against all meddling. I hate the fact that the state that I live in has seat belt laws now, Blue Laws, and the fact that some intersections still have cameras on the street lights (red light cameras were declared unconstitutional in Minneapolis).
If a private business wants to have cameras which only view their own private/personal property, that's fine. As soon as it's opened up to a group outside of that private business or they are viewing public property then it's not acceptable. No, I don't believe in the whole "if you can be seen by a private citizen then it's the same thing." Once that citizen can play back an exact copy of the event in his/her head at a later time without any chance of fault, then I'll consider it the same damn thing.
I don't support new initiatives but since we already have it and it's not going away we might as well fill those heavily subsidized routes which sit mostly empty.
Come on guys are we really going to try and claim that the status of the road surface in Michigan is useful information for nerds?
Because I'm a fiscally conservative nerd that's also interested in how money is spent on all infrastructure projects, not just my shitty Internet connection?
Personally I think that all roads should be converted to the most economically feasible material and the savings spent on developing mass transit options. This will move people away from roads and to mass transit options instead. Try getting up to viable speeds on gravel compared to a paved road.
Fuck a hurricane or blizzard, many of the channels which I normally would receive are gone or are so fucked up that they are unwatchable. I still say that at least with analog I could see or hear SOMETHING.
Digital TV sucks for everyone. I still want to know where our checks from the sale of the spectrum are. The spectrum is owned by the people, not the government. It is The People that should have received the cash from that, no one else--and no, the "coupons" for the boxes are not what I meant especially when I didn't even get mine (they were lost in the mail I guess) and were not replaced.
You are looking at this all wrong and you have to look at it from their POV. Since the recent "updates" to Slashcode are ready for launch even though everything is fucked up, by that logic, so is the Chinese probe.
You know, I hate what's going on in America but your cowardly post is bullshit. I traveled to Canada (Winnipeg via North Dakota to be exact) in 2006 and while I had absolutely ZERO issues getting back into the US (I was actually surprised--weren't we trying to keep terrorists out?) getting into Canada was a fucking pain in the ass.
1. We were detained at the border.
2. We were made to wait for 60 minutes next to three shady looking motherfuckers (who fit the racial profile of those the US would detain) while the border agents stood around and talked amongst themselves.
3. The three shady fucks were questioned in the back. Eventually they were all called to the front one at a time. Each was told, "you said you were never convicted but records from the MN State Patrol say foo foo and foo. Don't lie to a border agent. You may enter the country." (all three had some sort of conviction including a DUI which is grounds for being barred from entering Canada and indecent exposure which the guy argued had been expunged). They were free to enter Canada without any further complications.
4. We were also questioned separately. They asked me 20 or so questions about why I was planning on entering Canada (we were going geocaching).
5. We were detained further as they searched our entire vehicle for the next 30 or so minutes (they didn't do this to the douchebags who LIED TO THE BORDER AGENTS). We were finally allowed to pass into Canada after nearly two hours.
---
On our way home they asked to see our birth certificates, IDs, and/or passports. We were asked how long we were in Canada, why, and after explaining what geocaching was in general terms we were on our way. 10 minutes tops.
Yeah, so the US is just so much more scary. Give me a fucking break.
Artist using new technology is nothing new. I like Apple and the iPhone but this is just a plain "Apple PR News" story, nothing for nerds, nothing that matters.
While I see what you're trying to say, you neglect to point out that dogs have a hierarchy just like any other social group. Yeah, it sucks and humans should be above that but it's there with the dogs you use as an example.
Are you implying that your opposition to illegal activity is stronger than your commitment to free speech? That's the sentiment evil men use to create nightmare police states.
My opposition to profiteering from illegal activity is stronger than my belief that it falls under free speech.
As for illegal activity, it's a public forum so you can expect a certain amount of that sort of thing.
When I read about this several days ago, Craigslist admitted that it was going to spend more time manually checking the sex related ads rather than relying on the community to flag "inappropriate" content.
Craigslist makes money and regardless of my feelings on free speech, it shouldn't be profiting from illegal activity.
I just checked my usage (I don't tether and I don't consider myself a heavy user, at least not compared to what I did with my T-mobile Sidekick) and I have over 400MB of data usage in the last 16 days. If they move to tiers, I'd drop this thing like a hot potato.
That second week, and the subsequent weeks, is very dependent on the reviews. These are the people who waited for someone else to go see it opening weekend, and then wait to hear what they said about the movie.
You mean word-of-mouth, not professional reviewers. Many movie-goers, myself included, completely ignore the words of the professionals and instead wait for friends to rave about a flick. Unfortunately for Star Trek, my most trusted word of mouth review was, "it was cast well."
I'll wait for the freebie Redbox rental on Mondays or just pay the $1. It's not worth a $20+ outing to the movie theater for my wife and me.
`(a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
`(b) As used in this section--
`(1) the term `communication' means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user's choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received; and
`(2) the term `electronic means' means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages.'.
(b) Clerical Amendment- The table of sections at the beginning of chapter 41 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new item:
What part of that specifies that my First Amendment rights aren't being violated especially about political discussion? Nothing. If I continuously call a politician a slimy bitch for taking my tax dollars and wasting them on a $20 million performing arts center that is leaking money faster than the city leaders ever could have possibly imagined all while smiling and ignoring the question when it's posed by others, then according to what I just pasted above, I'm harassing them--which I am not.
Being that this proposed law mentions nothing of the right of the people to directly attack public officials (protected speech, not harassment regardless of how many times I choose to talk about their poor choices at my expense) means that I could be held liable for this and imprisoned. How cute.
You specifically mention that this type of behavior towards the general public (not public officials) is already defined by preexisting harassment law. IOW, there is absolutely no need for this bill to be presented, discussed or passed. Why must politicians create unnecessary laws? Hey you fucking douchebags, stop wasting your time and our tax dollars formulating and discussing unnecessary legislation just so you can look better in the public eye. Assholes.
Yes, I purposefully used the language I did to make a point--I would be arrested and imprisoned under that proposed legislation for posting what I just did. I hope I made my point.
Shouldn't they be focusing on a cheaper kindle-like device, since that has shown some acceptance in the marketplace?
They should be concentrating on delivering the news to people in the format that they want it delivered in. People are already long beyond the point where someone else telling us how to get our information is going to work. I want my news via RSS that I can read on my phone and any multitude of other machines I'm using throughout the day. I do NOT want to purchase ANOTHER device to read news from one source.
The newspaper industry continues to amaze me. When they are failing, and failing hard, instead of finding a way to work within the boundaries of what people want and are already utilizing, these companies are trying to get people to go back to reading what is basically the same thing that put them out of business in the first place.
I'm sure herbicide would have been more cost-effective at preventing weed growth.
It is, for a few generations but over the course of time certain weeds have become at least partially immune to such spraying and thus they require more and more spraying in order to remain as effective as they once were. While those that oppose chemical sprays for farming claim it's like a drug addiction, I like to think it was a known side effect that the chemical companies were looking to exploit.
Linux has caused me to become a drunk. I hate going through manpages, scouring through Linux support forums, and trying what seems to be an endless train of the same thing until I get so drunk that I do something I didn't plan on and the setup works.
That said I've been running Linux on one machine or another since 1996 (beginning w/Slackware, moving to RH (for Alpha), and then finally moving to Debian where I've been since 2002). It still pisses me off that I have a couple of outstanding issues that have been around for the last 6.5 years but I'm just too fucking lazy to fix them. While I used to run Linux solely (between 1997 and 2002) I have moved to a server side Linux setup and a desktop Windows (and OS X, ugh) environment.
I still get drunk and I have Linux to blame. Don't drink the penguin!
Slashdot Mirror
How does your city do with utilities? If they were owned by a private corporation, do you think you would have more or less influence on them? Would they be more or less expensive? Are these good or a bad things for your community? Those are the important questions to ask.
They are public services that are better off handled by a third party and not a government organization. Water and sewage are pretty much essential services that should be handled by the government to keep service levels high and not so much worry about the cost. Internet is not anywhere even close to being an essential service and thus is why it should be lumped in with arts and liquor as something that local governments shouldn't do.
Do you really want to choose the tyranny of Comcast or AT&T over that of a local city or county meeting?
I have no idea how private companies run their business meetings or make decisions but I do know how my local cities do and honestly, based on how they choose to spend MY money to support the various overreaching services they already do ($5 million on a new LEED certified municipal liquor store or $20 million on an empty performing arts center which is in danger of losing over $1 million this year), I have to say that I'd prefer that these ventures remain at the private level where my tax dollar input is minimal and generally only if I choose to subscribe to the service myself.
We really don't need yet another venture owned and operated by the city (in one way or another, whether that be through a third party management company or not) that loses money because they are operating a service that they really don't know how to.
It may well be that having installed cameras, less people jump the lights, and therefore a shorter yellow light time becomes acceptable. The original longer yellow light only existing because of jackasses.
That would be 100% true if every city in every state used the EXACT same yellow light duration at all times of the day, unfortunately they do not and thus the reason why the danger exists.
So basically, you want to be able to get away with a crime you would be successfully prosecuted for if there was camera evidence. No sympathy.
I don't want to get away with anything. I just don't think that law was written with cameras in mind and our extrapolation to include them as acceptable is wrong. You can disagree with me all you like but it is a serious concern that no one expected to have to deal with 200 years ago.
You have a problem with this, as opposed to a private citizen witness, because you want to preserve the right to accuse a private citizen witness who is telling the truth of lying? You want to preserve the option of lying about someone else who's telling the truth?
In a court of law an eyewitness account can be filtered through time and personal judgment. I never said that the witness was lying, just that they aren't as useful as a video account of the happenings--especially when we're looking at 1+ year later.
I wear my seat belt and require them to be used by others when I drive. I'm not against that but I am against the police having the authority to pull someone over for the offense (it hasn't come to that in MN yet but it will eventually). I can't always tell when my wife has her belt on in the car when I'm sitting next to her (it blends in with the color of clothing she wears most frequently), how the fuck is the cop going to do so from afar?
We love the nanny state when it protects us from ourselves, but we don't want them watching.
I don't know about the rest of Slashdot (I haven't really seen that rhetoric but if you do, I won't argue) but I am certainly against all meddling. I hate the fact that the state that I live in has seat belt laws now, Blue Laws, and the fact that some intersections still have cameras on the street lights (red light cameras were declared unconstitutional in Minneapolis).
If a private business wants to have cameras which only view their own private/personal property, that's fine. As soon as it's opened up to a group outside of that private business or they are viewing public property then it's not acceptable. No, I don't believe in the whole "if you can be seen by a private citizen then it's the same thing." Once that citizen can play back an exact copy of the event in his/her head at a later time without any chance of fault, then I'll consider it the same damn thing.
If I had the ability, I would rate this "+5 You Owe Me A Dry Keyboard"
I don't support new initiatives but since we already have it and it's not going away we might as well fill those heavily subsidized routes which sit mostly empty.
Come on guys are we really going to try and claim that the status of the road surface in Michigan is useful information for nerds?
Because I'm a fiscally conservative nerd that's also interested in how money is spent on all infrastructure projects, not just my shitty Internet connection?
Personally I think that all roads should be converted to the most economically feasible material and the savings spent on developing mass transit options. This will move people away from roads and to mass transit options instead. Try getting up to viable speeds on gravel compared to a paved road.
Sounds like a good topic to me!
Fuck a hurricane or blizzard, many of the channels which I normally would receive are gone or are so fucked up that they are unwatchable. I still say that at least with analog I could see or hear SOMETHING.
Digital TV sucks for everyone. I still want to know where our checks from the sale of the spectrum are. The spectrum is owned by the people, not the government. It is The People that should have received the cash from that, no one else--and no, the "coupons" for the boxes are not what I meant especially when I didn't even get mine (they were lost in the mail I guess) and were not replaced.
You are looking at this all wrong and you have to look at it from their POV. Since the recent "updates" to Slashcode are ready for launch even though everything is fucked up, by that logic, so is the Chinese probe.
You know, I hate what's going on in America but your cowardly post is bullshit. I traveled to Canada (Winnipeg via North Dakota to be exact) in 2006 and while I had absolutely ZERO issues getting back into the US (I was actually surprised--weren't we trying to keep terrorists out?) getting into Canada was a fucking pain in the ass.
1. We were detained at the border.
2. We were made to wait for 60 minutes next to three shady looking motherfuckers (who fit the racial profile of those the US would detain) while the border agents stood around and talked amongst themselves.
3. The three shady fucks were questioned in the back. Eventually they were all called to the front one at a time. Each was told, "you said you were never convicted but records from the MN State Patrol say foo foo and foo. Don't lie to a border agent. You may enter the country." (all three had some sort of conviction including a DUI which is grounds for being barred from entering Canada and indecent exposure which the guy argued had been expunged). They were free to enter Canada without any further complications.
4. We were also questioned separately. They asked me 20 or so questions about why I was planning on entering Canada (we were going geocaching).
5. We were detained further as they searched our entire vehicle for the next 30 or so minutes (they didn't do this to the douchebags who LIED TO THE BORDER AGENTS). We were finally allowed to pass into Canada after nearly two hours.
---
On our way home they asked to see our birth certificates, IDs, and/or passports. We were asked how long we were in Canada, why, and after explaining what geocaching was in general terms we were on our way. 10 minutes tops.
Yeah, so the US is just so much more scary. Give me a fucking break.
Artist using new technology is nothing new. I like Apple and the iPhone but this is just a plain "Apple PR News" story, nothing for nerds, nothing that matters.
It's not even new technology!
While I see what you're trying to say, you neglect to point out that dogs have a hierarchy just like any other social group. Yeah, it sucks and humans should be above that but it's there with the dogs you use as an example.
Are you implying that your opposition to illegal activity is stronger than your commitment to free speech? That's the sentiment evil men use to create nightmare police states.
My opposition to profiteering from illegal activity is stronger than my belief that it falls under free speech.
As for illegal activity, it's a public forum so you can expect a certain amount of that sort of thing.
When I read about this several days ago, Craigslist admitted that it was going to spend more time manually checking the sex related ads rather than relying on the community to flag "inappropriate" content.
Craigslist makes money and regardless of my feelings on free speech, it shouldn't be profiting from illegal activity.
I just checked my usage (I don't tether and I don't consider myself a heavy user, at least not compared to what I did with my T-mobile Sidekick) and I have over 400MB of data usage in the last 16 days. If they move to tiers, I'd drop this thing like a hot potato.
That second week, and the subsequent weeks, is very dependent on the reviews. These are the people who waited for someone else to go see it opening weekend, and then wait to hear what they said about the movie.
You mean word-of-mouth, not professional reviewers. Many movie-goers, myself included, completely ignore the words of the professionals and instead wait for friends to rave about a flick. Unfortunately for Star Trek, my most trusted word of mouth review was, "it was cast well."
I'll wait for the freebie Redbox rental on Mondays or just pay the $1. It's not worth a $20+ outing to the movie theater for my wife and me.
I most certainly did read the bill:
`Sec. 881. Cyberbullying
`(a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
`(b) As used in this section--
`(1) the term `communication' means the electronic transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user's choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received; and
`(2) the term `electronic means' means any equipment dependent on electrical power to access an information service, including email, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones, and text messages.'.
(b) Clerical Amendment- The table of sections at the beginning of chapter 41 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new item:
What part of that specifies that my First Amendment rights aren't being violated especially about political discussion? Nothing. If I continuously call a politician a slimy bitch for taking my tax dollars and wasting them on a $20 million performing arts center that is leaking money faster than the city leaders ever could have possibly imagined all while smiling and ignoring the question when it's posed by others, then according to what I just pasted above, I'm harassing them--which I am not.
On my website I directly attack those in the public eye--especially local politicians--using my standard colorful language choice, I link to a video of an interview where I appeared on a local public access TV show and was accused of being too harsh in my tone and language when I directly attack these people for wasting millions of taxpayer dollars.
Being that this proposed law mentions nothing of the right of the people to directly attack public officials (protected speech, not harassment regardless of how many times I choose to talk about their poor choices at my expense) means that I could be held liable for this and imprisoned. How cute.
You specifically mention that this type of behavior towards the general public (not public officials) is already defined by preexisting harassment law. IOW, there is absolutely no need for this bill to be presented, discussed or passed. Why must politicians create unnecessary laws? Hey you fucking douchebags, stop wasting your time and our tax dollars formulating and discussing unnecessary legislation just so you can look better in the public eye. Assholes.
Yes, I purposefully used the language I did to make a point--I would be arrested and imprisoned under that proposed legislation for posting what I just did. I hope I made my point.
Yeah but there are other benefits aside from the obvious jokes about Goatse-eing:
1. Milk
2. Meat: tasty, tasty murder.
3. Less fossil fuel burning.
*shrug*, it's hip to be green.
Shouldn't they be focusing on a cheaper kindle-like device, since that has shown some acceptance in the marketplace?
They should be concentrating on delivering the news to people in the format that they want it delivered in. People are already long beyond the point where someone else telling us how to get our information is going to work. I want my news via RSS that I can read on my phone and any multitude of other machines I'm using throughout the day. I do NOT want to purchase ANOTHER device to read news from one source.
The newspaper industry continues to amaze me. When they are failing, and failing hard, instead of finding a way to work within the boundaries of what people want and are already utilizing, these companies are trying to get people to go back to reading what is basically the same thing that put them out of business in the first place.
I'm sure herbicide would have been more cost-effective at preventing weed growth.
It is, for a few generations but over the course of time certain weeds have become at least partially immune to such spraying and thus they require more and more spraying in order to remain as effective as they once were. While those that oppose chemical sprays for farming claim it's like a drug addiction, I like to think it was a known side effect that the chemical companies were looking to exploit.
Linux has caused me to become a drunk. I hate going through manpages, scouring through Linux support forums, and trying what seems to be an endless train of the same thing until I get so drunk that I do something I didn't plan on and the setup works.
That said I've been running Linux on one machine or another since 1996 (beginning w/Slackware, moving to RH (for Alpha), and then finally moving to Debian where I've been since 2002). It still pisses me off that I have a couple of outstanding issues that have been around for the last 6.5 years but I'm just too fucking lazy to fix them. While I used to run Linux solely (between 1997 and 2002) I have moved to a server side Linux setup and a desktop Windows (and OS X, ugh) environment.
I still get drunk and I have Linux to blame. Don't drink the penguin!