Even if it was a magical black box, it could be subject to scientific double-blind testing and you could measure the precision & accuracy of the magical black box.
Yes, it would be good to require that sort of testing of each person who is ever facing conviction based on a Breathalyzer BAC result. Unless the error rate is exactly zero, every single person has the possibility of falling into that category. That needs to be eliminated prior to a conviction. So, you can do blood and breath experiments for each and every person ever charged with DUI in a lab, or you can provide the source code and the person can show that their personal blood characteristics do or do not match the assumptions that the machine makes every time it runs.
You don't need to know how it works to know the error rate. You do need to know how it works to determine definitively whether a certain reading is erroneous or not.
The statement should be change to "We don't need wired ethernet for employee workstations anymore".
Absolutely not agreed. Wireless is fine for most consumer applications. If a station is tied to a desk, however, there is much to be gained from a wired network that wireless cannot yet provide. The higher the density of endpoints in any given area the more problems wireless has, whether you're talking about connectivity, troubleshooting, or security. If you want a stable network that's (relatively) easy to rebalance as needed, wired takes the cake hands down. That's not even touching the bandwidth issues...
I figured anyone who was paying attention would realize my comment applied only to the US side of the discussion, but I suppose it's good to point that out specifically. This is Slashdot after all.:)
You invoke your right to remain silent. In the case of a safe, their option is to crack it. In the case of an encrypted file, their option it also to crack it. They cannot compel you to speak in order to assist their investigation, unless you are in the military and being investigated by the military.
There are many places in the US that operate exactly on this sort of principle, whether it be on behalf of the USPS, UPS, FedEX, or whatnot. There are also many places that don't. The circumstances of a particular area are as varied as the country is large.
As far as end-user service is concerned, the differences I have noted between USPS, UPS, and FedEx are mostly negligible. Prices for comparable services are fairly competitive as of the last time I was shipping large numbers of packages. The only difference is that the USPS can deliver non-urgent letters, while other carriers are prohibited by law from doing so. Their insurance claim process does stand out as being much more drawn-out (2.5 months to wait from send date to claim filing for anything non-priority) than any other carrier service I've ever had to file a claim with.
Pay no attention to the fact that we waterboarded the scientists in charge of the study on the effectiveness of information obtained from waterboarding. Nothing to see here, move along please.
You can only have sales taxes waived in the US if you reside in a state with no sales tax. A resident of Washington cannot get California sales tax waived on items purchased while in California. An Orgeon resident however, can.
In practice this is rarely done, and many stores don't even know the process for waiving sales tax. It's usually only worth the hassle once the sales tax reaches into the double digits.
No, you said you only get the shaft if you don't participate. I disagreed, as you can easily get the shaft even if you do participate. Participation alone is not enough to prevent any group from getting the shaft. The pimp/ho dichotomy is called "hyperbole." Of course it is nonsense on its face: that's part of the point of using it.
Any argument against democracy is an argument for some form of totalitarianism...
If you're not for us you're against us. How original, insightful, and clever. No government has ever been reformed with greater success than in a given geographical area's past history. </sarcasm>
Unfortunately, they will always be people who want "more" until the entire population is employed by the government (or completely controlled in thought and deed by it should they not be employed) and it is decided by one massive body what the available resources of every single person are. Perfect egalitarian equality, assuming all those chaps up the food chain from you actually do what they're supposed to and the laws put in place by the labor un^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Congress are actually designed to promote fairness.
There are bad things about individualism, but there are good things too. People who are government/taxation/class warfare cheerleaders use the term like it's a curse word, and anyone displaying the tendency is a nasty, evil person. They owe their cushy existence to individualists as much as to group efforts. The day individualism dies, humanity becomes the Zerg.
Nowhere did I say participation from the losing side didn't have an effect. </strawman> If you tune out, it just means the other side needs one less vote to become the pimps.
In regard to you being modded down, the vicious tone of your responses following your first post probably contributed to your continuing downmodding. Even if your argument has merit, people are less prone to see it if they have to wade through a cesspool of bile and vitriol to get to it.
You also have to be on the 50%+1 side who has been promised by their politician of choice that they can be the pimps, while making the 50%-1 the chattel. Participation, even in a large group, is not enough to accurately qualify that statement. You have to participate and be in the largest group.
They represent the best interests of the child within certain confines. After all, they're pegging one innocent, unrelated person with the costs (the non-father husband) instead of another innocent, unrelated person (Joe Blow millionaire up the street). <hyperbole>The latter would be able to provide far better for the child, so why doesn't the court order him to pay?</hyperbole>
Punishing an innocent is wrong, even if it in the best interest of another innocent. Opening the door to that logic means any abuse can be justified if it is committed on behalf of a child's "best interests."
Lots of cases of judicial abuse to "protect the children" here.
The entirety of their product line was available as pirated PDFs prior to their decision to sell legitimate copies. The service gave WotC a profit from the trade in PDFs of their product and created customers from those who would purchase PDFs but were unable or unwilling to purchase hard-copy books. Before they sold PDFs, they got no profit from PDFs. Now, they will no longer get profit from the trade in PDFs.
PDFs will not cease being traded, nor is the trade likely to even slow down noticeably. The only difference is WotC has fewer customers in the demographic that has little disposable income or doesn't want to be bankrupted buying an entire library of hardcovers every time the rules are overhauled, and they no longer make any profit from the trade in PDFs (which, due to the incredibly elastic supply has huge profit margins in comparison to traditional book sales).
Apple currently controls both the hardware and the software of the current Mac, so it appears they are continuing what you call a mistake. This mistake has gotten them a larger share of the consumer market than Linux despite stiff price competition.
What you seem to fail to realize is that Apple has market share because they have their own distribution channels. If they did not operate their own distribution channels, they would be in the same boat in regards to market share that Linux is.
Apple can make a profit because of the fairly aggressive markup that they put on their hardware+software combo. If a company invested as aggressively in marketing a Linux + hardware package, they might have as much success as Apple has had given as many years as Apple has been working their distribution channel. Until that happens, expect Linux on the desktop to be a significant minority. The potential is there, but what is missing is an actual competitive distribution channel.
But it should be obvious that without armed slaveholders, slavery itself would simply have been unworkable. Thus, the right to bear arms was in fact a concession to the South. Without the Second Amendment, Congress could have de facto ended slavery simply by outlawing personal possession of firearms.
Those are some pretty large leaps. The first sentence is true. The second leaps from "armed" to "armed with firearms." Being armed with firearms is not necessary to control slaves. It's not necessary even in current slavery rings. Firearms are used to protect the slaver from outside forces possibly, but not from the slaves themselves. Slaves are kept in check with physical punishment. Always have been, and continue to be today. Firearms cause unnecessary complications when used as a form of control. Too damaging, too hard to repair. Whips, bludgeons, and fists are the primary means of control.
The third sentence ignores the leap in the second, because outlawing firearms by itself would not end slavery because firearms were not typically used to actually control the slaves. It may have helped in the Southern defense during the Civil War, but that goes back to a point in my first paragraph: firearms, when used in a slavery operation, would be used to protect the operation, not to (typically) harm the slave.
I'm sure the issue of slavery influenced every Southern position during the framing, but the argument about firearms being integral to the institution of slavery doesn't follow. It helps, but is by no means absolutely necessary.
Leaving aside the pre-existing codified protections in non-slave states prior to the adoption of the Constitution that show slavery is in no way the sole reason for the existence of the amendment, your statements are for the most part irrelevant. There is plenty in the foundational documents of the USA falling within the realm of "ideal," that did not exist in practice. The stage was set in the adoption of the Constitution to eventually allow the realization of equality, even if it did not exist at the time.
I am saying that a reason the Second Amendment was included in the first place was as an explicit guarantee that the tools by which slavery was maintained in slave states would not be taken away by the Federal government.
Fixed to make this not patently absurd. An obvious reason does not necessarily mean the obvious reason, without a whole lot in the way of incontrovertible proof. Anything else is intellectual arrogance.
The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave.
The above bolded portion of a quote you used underscores how your assumption that African slavery was the sole basis for the 2nd amendment is wrong. It affirms the lack of firearms as a hallmark of slavery in general. That much is obvious. What should also be obvious is that it applies to people who are of European descent as well. Those of European (or Asiatic, Indian, Amerindian, etc) descent who do not retain the right to bear arms are as likely to be enslaved at some point as anyone else. That there were those who were aware of what helped them protect their freedom and prosperity even as they denied it to others is simply a testament to their character. There were others who were aware of what helped them protect their freedom and prosperity and would not deny it to others. You seem to ignore as much evidence as you accuse those who disagree with you of ignoring. Like most things, the truth of the matter usually lies somewhere in the middle. Too bad more people don't recognize that.
While this may be true to a limited extent in the US (as each state has its own laws in regard to real estate transactions, and fraud in general), it is by no means universal there. A land title purchased in good faith can in fact be voided if the sale was he result of fraud. That's the point of title insurance: to protect the buyer and/or the person providing credit to the buyer should a title defect be discovered at a later point.
Without title insurance it is entirely possible that a buyer can foot the entire loss, and their only recourse is to pursue the fraudulent seller in civil court. The buyer may have the appearance of a stronger title claim, but that only goes as far as the quality of the forged title record(s).
Yes, it does suck. It's quite effective at sucking. That sucking sound is your bank account emptying as you play the game and replace your equipment from your bank account, with little chance of actually fully recouping your losses through play. Profit generation is a gamble and more about luck than anything else in Entropia, which will make it fit in quite nicely into a bank's profit generation.
Imagine being able to create money out of nothing, loan that money to someone you know is going to gamble it away (at least partially) at your low-rent casino, and then also charge them interest on that temporary money that you created out of nothing? It's a bank's dream.
Slashdot Mirror
Even if it was a magical black box, it could be subject to scientific double-blind testing and you could measure the precision & accuracy of the magical black box.
Yes, it would be good to require that sort of testing of each person who is ever facing conviction based on a Breathalyzer BAC result. Unless the error rate is exactly zero, every single person has the possibility of falling into that category. That needs to be eliminated prior to a conviction. So, you can do blood and breath experiments for each and every person ever charged with DUI in a lab, or you can provide the source code and the person can show that their personal blood characteristics do or do not match the assumptions that the machine makes every time it runs.
You don't need to know how it works to know the error rate. You do need to know how it works to determine definitively whether a certain reading is erroneous or not.
The statement should be change to "We don't need wired ethernet for employee workstations anymore".
Absolutely not agreed. Wireless is fine for most consumer applications. If a station is tied to a desk, however, there is much to be gained from a wired network that wireless cannot yet provide. The higher the density of endpoints in any given area the more problems wireless has, whether you're talking about connectivity, troubleshooting, or security. If you want a stable network that's (relatively) easy to rebalance as needed, wired takes the cake hands down. That's not even touching the bandwidth issues...
I figured anyone who was paying attention would realize my comment applied only to the US side of the discussion, but I suppose it's good to point that out specifically. This is Slashdot after all. :)
You invoke your right to remain silent. In the case of a safe, their option is to crack it. In the case of an encrypted file, their option it also to crack it. They cannot compel you to speak in order to assist their investigation, unless you are in the military and being investigated by the military.
There are many places in the US that operate exactly on this sort of principle, whether it be on behalf of the USPS, UPS, FedEX, or whatnot. There are also many places that don't. The circumstances of a particular area are as varied as the country is large.
As far as end-user service is concerned, the differences I have noted between USPS, UPS, and FedEx are mostly negligible. Prices for comparable services are fairly competitive as of the last time I was shipping large numbers of packages. The only difference is that the USPS can deliver non-urgent letters, while other carriers are prohibited by law from doing so. Their insurance claim process does stand out as being much more drawn-out (2.5 months to wait from send date to claim filing for anything non-priority) than any other carrier service I've ever had to file a claim with.
Wow, thought what I wrote was clear enough that I didn't need to explicitly add the <joke></joke> tags.
Welcome, this is Slashdot. I must be new here. <headdesk>
Pay no attention to the fact that we waterboarded the scientists in charge of the study on the effectiveness of information obtained from waterboarding. Nothing to see here, move along please.
If the seller is out of state, you have the obligation to report and pay the use tax on your state tax return.
Fixed.
You can only have sales taxes waived in the US if you reside in a state with no sales tax. A resident of Washington cannot get California sales tax waived on items purchased while in California. An Orgeon resident however, can.
In practice this is rarely done, and many stores don't even know the process for waiving sales tax. It's usually only worth the hassle once the sales tax reaches into the double digits.
You're splitting hairs...
No, you said you only get the shaft if you don't participate. I disagreed, as you can easily get the shaft even if you do participate. Participation alone is not enough to prevent any group from getting the shaft. The pimp/ho dichotomy is called "hyperbole." Of course it is nonsense on its face: that's part of the point of using it.
Any argument against democracy is an argument for some form of totalitarianism...
If you're not for us you're against us. How original, insightful, and clever. No government has ever been reformed with greater success than in a given geographical area's past history. </sarcasm>
Unfortunately, they will always be people who want "more" until the entire population is employed by the government (or completely controlled in thought and deed by it should they not be employed) and it is decided by one massive body what the available resources of every single person are. Perfect egalitarian equality, assuming all those chaps up the food chain from you actually do what they're supposed to and the laws put in place by the labor un^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Congress are actually designed to promote fairness.
There are bad things about individualism, but there are good things too. People who are government/taxation/class warfare cheerleaders use the term like it's a curse word, and anyone displaying the tendency is a nasty, evil person. They owe their cushy existence to individualists as much as to group efforts. The day individualism dies, humanity becomes the Zerg.
Not really sure, I've never been to Tatooine myself. Hear it's nice this time of year.
Nowhere did I say participation from the losing side didn't have an effect. </strawman>
If you tune out, it just means the other side needs one less vote to become the pimps.
In regard to you being modded down, the vicious tone of your responses following your first post probably contributed to your continuing downmodding. Even if your argument has merit, people are less prone to see it if they have to wade through a cesspool of bile and vitriol to get to it.
You also have to be on the 50%+1 side who has been promised by their politician of choice that they can be the pimps, while making the 50%-1 the chattel. Participation, even in a large group, is not enough to accurately qualify that statement. You have to participate and be in the largest group.
This is /.
We don't read the details here. We make wild assumptions first and are smacked down later.
Enjoy your stay.
They represent the best interests of the child within certain confines. After all, they're pegging one innocent, unrelated person with the costs (the non-father husband) instead of another innocent, unrelated person (Joe Blow millionaire up the street).
<hyperbole>The latter would be able to provide far better for the child, so why doesn't the court order him to pay?</hyperbole>
Punishing an innocent is wrong, even if it in the best interest of another innocent. Opening the door to that logic means any abuse can be justified if it is committed on behalf of a child's "best interests."
Lots of cases of judicial abuse to "protect the children" here.
The entirety of their product line was available as pirated PDFs prior to their decision to sell legitimate copies. The service gave WotC a profit from the trade in PDFs of their product and created customers from those who would purchase PDFs but were unable or unwilling to purchase hard-copy books. Before they sold PDFs, they got no profit from PDFs. Now, they will no longer get profit from the trade in PDFs.
PDFs will not cease being traded, nor is the trade likely to even slow down noticeably. The only difference is WotC has fewer customers in the demographic that has little disposable income or doesn't want to be bankrupted buying an entire library of hardcovers every time the rules are overhauled, and they no longer make any profit from the trade in PDFs (which, due to the incredibly elastic supply has huge profit margins in comparison to traditional book sales).
Fer shure I though his "name" was Lee! /facepalm
Apple currently controls both the hardware and the software of the current Mac, so it appears they are continuing what you call a mistake. This mistake has gotten them a larger share of the consumer market than Linux despite stiff price competition.
What you seem to fail to realize is that Apple has market share because they have their own distribution channels. If they did not operate their own distribution channels, they would be in the same boat in regards to market share that Linux is.
Apple can make a profit because of the fairly aggressive markup that they put on their hardware+software combo. If a company invested as aggressively in marketing a Linux + hardware package, they might have as much success as Apple has had given as many years as Apple has been working their distribution channel. Until that happens, expect Linux on the desktop to be a significant minority. The potential is there, but what is missing is an actual competitive distribution channel.
But it should be obvious that without armed slaveholders, slavery itself would simply have been unworkable. Thus, the right to bear arms was in fact a concession to the South. Without the Second Amendment, Congress could have de facto ended slavery simply by outlawing personal possession of firearms.
Those are some pretty large leaps. The first sentence is true. The second leaps from "armed" to "armed with firearms." Being armed with firearms is not necessary to control slaves. It's not necessary even in current slavery rings. Firearms are used to protect the slaver from outside forces possibly, but not from the slaves themselves. Slaves are kept in check with physical punishment. Always have been, and continue to be today. Firearms cause unnecessary complications when used as a form of control. Too damaging, too hard to repair. Whips, bludgeons, and fists are the primary means of control.
The third sentence ignores the leap in the second, because outlawing firearms by itself would not end slavery because firearms were not typically used to actually control the slaves. It may have helped in the Southern defense during the Civil War, but that goes back to a point in my first paragraph: firearms, when used in a slavery operation, would be used to protect the operation, not to (typically) harm the slave.
I'm sure the issue of slavery influenced every Southern position during the framing, but the argument about firearms being integral to the institution of slavery doesn't follow. It helps, but is by no means absolutely necessary.
Leaving aside the pre-existing codified protections in non-slave states prior to the adoption of the Constitution that show slavery is in no way the sole reason for the existence of the amendment, your statements are for the most part irrelevant. There is plenty in the foundational documents of the USA falling within the realm of "ideal," that did not exist in practice. The stage was set in the adoption of the Constitution to eventually allow the realization of equality, even if it did not exist at the time.
I am saying that a reason the Second Amendment was included in the first place was as an explicit guarantee that the tools by which slavery was maintained in slave states would not be taken away by the Federal government.
Fixed to make this not patently absurd. An obvious reason does not necessarily mean the obvious reason, without a whole lot in the way of incontrovertible proof. Anything else is intellectual arrogance.
The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave.
The above bolded portion of a quote you used underscores how your assumption that African slavery was the sole basis for the 2nd amendment is wrong. It affirms the lack of firearms as a hallmark of slavery in general. That much is obvious. What should also be obvious is that it applies to people who are of European descent as well. Those of European (or Asiatic, Indian, Amerindian, etc) descent who do not retain the right to bear arms are as likely to be enslaved at some point as anyone else. That there were those who were aware of what helped them protect their freedom and prosperity even as they denied it to others is simply a testament to their character. There were others who were aware of what helped them protect their freedom and prosperity and would not deny it to others. You seem to ignore as much evidence as you accuse those who disagree with you of ignoring. Like most things, the truth of the matter usually lies somewhere in the middle. Too bad more people don't recognize that.
While this may be true to a limited extent in the US (as each state has its own laws in regard to real estate transactions, and fraud in general), it is by no means universal there. A land title purchased in good faith can in fact be voided if the sale was he result of fraud. That's the point of title insurance: to protect the buyer and/or the person providing credit to the buyer should a title defect be discovered at a later point.
Without title insurance it is entirely possible that a buyer can foot the entire loss, and their only recourse is to pursue the fraudulent seller in civil court. The buyer may have the appearance of a stronger title claim, but that only goes as far as the quality of the forged title record(s).
Yes, it does suck. It's quite effective at sucking. That sucking sound is your bank account emptying as you play the game and replace your equipment from your bank account, with little chance of actually fully recouping your losses through play. Profit generation is a gamble and more about luck than anything else in Entropia, which will make it fit in quite nicely into a bank's profit generation.
Imagine being able to create money out of nothing, loan that money to someone you know is going to gamble it away (at least partially) at your low-rent casino, and then also charge them interest on that temporary money that you created out of nothing? It's a bank's dream.
Shh... Fractional reserve banking works because so few people actually understand how and why it works.
Thank you for that link. Very good resource to be able to direct others to.